Just A Vent

[BlueCollarMama]

Normally I leave the debates and drama to those who have the time for it and shrug off the negative tunnel vision of those who have to be right all the time, but this has come to personally affect me and I need to vent about it!

My best friend recently became a new mother of a gorgeous little boy. Well she called me at 3 am in hysterics the night before last because her milk had not come in yet (and we're talking 3 weeks after delivery) and she was having to feed the baby formula. She was wailing in my ear about how her son WAS GOING TO DIE BECAUSE SHE WAS FEEDING HIM FORMULA BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT THE WOMEN IN THE BREAST FEEDING SUPPORT GROUP AT THE HOSPITAL TOLD HER!

Trying my very hardest to stifle my laughter because I'd been told that, among other things (like 'increased cancer rates in moms' and 'increased allergy risks in the children' and 'not as smart as breastfed children' and on and on and on) I got her to calm down. I told her that for one she was lucky to have been able to give her son colostrum because not once with any of my five children did I get a single drop of anything out of my breasts and that feeling like she failed would only make bonding with her son seem like a chore instead of the wondrous joy it's meant to be. We finally hung up at 530 (there goes that night of sleep, but for a good cause) and while she was feeling less like it was the end of the world and more like it was just the way things happened to work out; I, on the other hand, was so mad I could've spit nails. I've sense calmed but it still just doesn't make sense to me.

How does using fear help a new mother? I failed my children because I couldn't nurse them? You want to try telling them that their mama doesn't love them? I'll tell you right now my five year old will argue those points with you until either you or him has gone senile with old age!

How does the holier than thou attitude help the image at all either? I.E My children are smarter then yours, healthier then yours and basically better then yours in EVERY way! Oh Yeah? Well prove it! Show me how my children (not the biased case studies) are in some way inferior.

As far as formula feeding goes it irks me that the FDA and the manufacturers are as lax about it as they are! I spent the better part of the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas of 2008 calling, emailing, writing letters, and faxing every senator, congressperson, committee spokesperson, chairperson, director and president I could think of and get in touch with because of all that nonsense that was going on with formula. In fact I was the one who told the WIC supervisor, my pediatrician, and the Director of the Department of Health... I knew about it BEFORE THEY DID! And I'm STILL on about it! I don't plan on stopping until formula is treated like everything else we entrust our children's health to. By the time I'm done you're going to have to get a script from your doctor and get your formula from a pharmacy tech!

Now as I said before I'm not on any 'side' here except for the 'whatever's best for you and your children' side. It's not my place to tell another mother how to raise her children, and I don't feel any of us have that right. I'm just venting. I'm not bashing, I'm not calling anyone out and the word 'you' as a generalization. Just wanted to make that clear so there's no chance of it being taken that way.