Welcome to the Breastfeeding Support Blog Party! Bloggers around the world have gathered together to share posts which provide current or soon-to-be breastfeeding mothers with a wealth of well-researched information, personal stories, and statistics designed to help you have the most successful breastfeeding experience possible. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of this post to learn more about this movement as well as to link to and read more informative breastfeeding support posts.
Breastfeeding. It not only has the correct nutrition for your child for your family’s situation, but it also provides immunity, changes as the child ages, lowers the risk of various types of cancer for both mom and child, promotes proper jaw growth, and much more….So why are so many people against women breastfeeding their children?
Formula companies have been waging a war, not just a war against breastfeeding, but a war against women. Sure, the formula companies are in it for the money. They don’t want you to breastfeed because then they don’t make money off of you. However, they also want you to question yourself. They want you to think that you aren’t good enough. You need their product because, well, you are lacking. Your very existence as a mother and woman are in question.
Breastfeeding in public? How immodest. You should take some of the formula they have created so that you don’t offend anyone else. The idea that women’s bodies have multiple functions, including ones which aren’t directly related to be sexual objects for men to own, clearly is outrageous.
Choices? This is a joke. Informed choices are made with information. Formula companies do their best to ignore or evade studies which show that breastmilk is biologically and nutritionally made for human babies. Our society doesn’t want women to have choices. Choices are for people who are empowered.
Recently, though, we have reached a new low. The Weston A. Price Foundation has come out saying that if a breastfeeding mother’s diet is not perfect, according to them, then you should not breastfeed. Instead, you should use their recipe to make your own formula.
If you aren’t perfect, as a mother, as a woman, then you just don’t measure up. I’m appalled. I’m appalled at the latent lack of information a nutritional organization has about all of the benefits of breastfeeding. I’m appalled at a society which views women as sex objects and property to the point that they shame women away from breastfeeding. I’m appalled that anyone would believe that is a woman and mother is not perfect, then they just aren’t good enough.
photo credit: muskva via photopin cc
This gathering of breastfeeding support comes in response to the Weston A. Price Foundation’s (WAPF) continued stance on breastfeeding, which we all have a great concern with. While the WAPF does support breastfeeding as the best option for feeding babies, it does so with a caveat. Breastfeeding mothers must follow the strict tenants of the WAPF diet and mothers who are not following their nutrient dense diet recommendations would be better off feeding their babies homemade formula (based on the WAPF recipe). In addition, they are outspoken against using donor milk.
The bloggers sharing posts today are concerned with the confusion this may cause breastfeeding mothers. Not only does research support the myriad of health benefits of breast milk for babies regardless of the mother’s diet, it also outlines additional benefits of breastfeeding such as better bonding, deeper trust, and a long list of other emotional benefits. Let’s not forget the health benefits for moms!
We will have a complete list of all the blog posts published today (as part of this Blog Party) in a separate post on Sunday, March 31st. We welcome you to join this blog party by linking up your own new and previously published posts which focus on any positive aspect of breastfeeding and breast milk. Please enter using the Linky Tool which can be found at Hybrid Rasta Mama, Cooking Traditional Foods, Whole New Mom, Alternative Parenting, or African Babies Don’t Cry. (All links will be subject to moderation. Any link not following the spirit of the Blog Party will be removed.
living peacefully with children 