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Interesting Info from my sister's Baby Book



 
 
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  #11  
Old July 10th 03, 12:43 AM
Naomi Pardue
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Default Interesting Info from my sister's Baby Book

However...."Formulas that are so nearly as good as breastmilk that babies
will do practically just as well on them"????

Not Hardly.


I was being fascescious.

It was well known in the 1950's and 1960's (has always been well known) that
breastmilk was better than formula. However, for most of the 20th century,
doctors found that, mysteriously, after having nursed their babies successfully
for millenia, most women who tried to breastfeed were suddenly 'failing.' The
only explanation they could come up with was that 'modern women were too
nervous', or similar notions, and they comforted themselves, and their
patients, by telling themselves (and their patients) that since formula was
'practically just as good as breastmilk' that they didn't need to worry their
pretty little heads about their failure to breastfeed, or their unwillingness
to even try it. (And, in fact, many doctors stopped encouraging women to even
try it, since they knew that the women would fail anyway.)
What they DIDN"T seem to have realized was that what was causing the vast
majority of women to 'fail' wasn't 'nervousness' or 'poor milk quality,' but
the belief that babies were only supposed to eat every 4 hours for 15 minutes,
and that if baby wasn't satisfied with that, the solution was to top him off
with formula and, if that didn't improve the supply, to wean.)


Naomi
CAPPA Certified Lactation Educator

(either remove spamblock or change address to to e-mail
reply.)
  #12  
Old July 10th 03, 12:43 AM
Vicki S
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Default Interesting Info from my sister's Baby Book

[[ This message was both posted and mailed: see
the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]]

Corinne wrote:

"Naomi Pardue" wrote in message
1959 that breastmilk WAS healthier than formula. (It was just too bad,
unfortunatley, that modern women were just too nervous to be able to nurse
successfully ... and aren't we lucky that we live in modern times where we
have such good formulas that are so nearly as good as breastmilk that babies
will do practically just as well on them!!)
Naomi
CAPPA Certified Lactation Educator


I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with the "CAPPA" designation...I'll look it up.
However...."Formulas that are so nearly as good as breastmilk that babies
will do practically just as well on them"????

Not Hardly. Much better than they used to be, yes...Not as likely to
endanger the health of babies, True...nearly as good as breastmilk? No.

Again, this is my opinion - not a slam at you, just a disagreement.
Corinne


I think you misunderstand Naomi. She was pretending to quote the 1959
doctors (who were sabotaging breastfeeding rates left and right). I'm
pretty certain that she wasn't expressing a personal opinion about 2003
formula.
Naomi happens to make a sort of hobby out of learning about feeding
recommendations for American babies through history.

---
--- Vicki in Indiana

Married my dear husband Joshua on May 21, 1995.
Ima shel ds, born 11/16/99 and breastfed for 22 months;
and Ima shel dd, still nursing. Born at home, 05/19/02.
http://www.geocities.com/vyxter/
An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. -Spanish proverb
Baby names I like: Theodore, Corinne, Lionel, Adele, Timothy, Amelia,
Chloe, Orlando.
  #13  
Old July 10th 03, 12:54 AM
Corinne
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Default Interesting Info from my sister's Baby Book

Thanks very much Vicki, I appreciate the clarification - I can be pretty
dense sometimes!!

Corinne


  #14  
Old July 10th 03, 08:08 PM
Corinne
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Default Interesting Info from my sister's Baby Book

"H Schinske" wrote in message
...
Corinne wrote:

However...."Formulas that are so nearly as good as breastmilk that babies
will do practically just as well on them"????


Naomi was being sarcastic.

--Helen


Thanks, Helen - As I said to Vicki, sometimes I'm pretty dense, so thank you
for helping me out on this one!! :-)

Corinne


  #15  
Old July 10th 03, 08:23 PM
cshardie
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Default Interesting Info from my sister's Baby Book

Corinne wrote:
I've read some very interesting books on just what you describe, the latest
being "Don't Kill Your Baby!" , which is FASCINATING. Have you seen that
one?


It's a fascinating title! What's it about, exactly?

--
Suzanne http://cshardie.tripod.com
sittin' on the dock of eBay, watching the bids roll away
--Richard Powers, "Literary Devices"

  #16  
Old July 11th 03, 12:12 AM
Corinne
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Default Interesting Info from my sister's Baby Book

"cshardie" wrote in message
. ..
Corinne wrote:
I've read some very interesting books on just what you describe, the

latest
being "Don't Kill Your Baby!" , which is FASCINATING. Have you seen that
one?


It's a fascinating title! What's it about, exactly?

--
Suzanne http://cshardie.tripod.com


It's a great book, and the subtitle tells mo "Public Health and the
Decline of Breastfeeding in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Women
and Health Cultural and Social Perspectives)"

http://tinyurl.com/glbl

it is a GREAT read - my HUSBAND couldn't put it down!!

Corinne


  #17  
Old July 11th 03, 01:05 AM
Naomi Pardue
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Default Interesting Info from my sister's Baby Book

I've read some very interesting books on just what you describe, the latest
being "Don't Kill Your Baby!" , which is FASCINATING. Have you seen that
one?


Yes, I do have that one. Very interesting indeed.

One I just finished is called, I think (too lazy to go dig it out of the
pile...) "The medicalization of motherhood,". This one sounded real promising,
but actually wasn't very interesting. It was about how Jewish and
African-American women in the first half of the last century responded to the
increasing amount of medical advice and pressure. (With Jewish women generally
welcoming such advice and African American women being more suspicious.)
The book was rather sketchy, going into far less detail than I might have
liked.
It didn't talk a lot about baby feeding, but most of the women did seem to have
formula fed.
One quote that really struck me though was from an African American woman who
talked about how the doctors and nurses were giving her all these instructions,
but she knew that mothers just had to trust their own instincts. She then went
on to say something like "My mother just told me to sterilize those bottles
really well before I put the milk in them, and make sure the bottles were all
really clean. I knew that if I did that my baby would be just fine, and I
didn't need to listen to anything those doctors told me." Instinct. Right.


Naomi
CAPPA Certified Lactation Educator

(either remove spamblock or change address to to e-mail
reply.)
  #18  
Old July 11th 03, 03:20 PM
Naomi Pardue
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Default Interesting Info from my sister's Baby Book

Mom was not only NOT encouraged to BF, but told she
was not allowed to BF, as it "Just wasn't done anymore"


I'm actually kinda curious about this. I know that doctors were often less than
encouraging about bfing, but I do find it pretty hard to believe that she would
have been forbidden to bf, at least for the reason given here. (DH's mother was
told that she couldn't bf because she has flat nipples.)
I would actually guess that your mother may have HEARD 'you are not allowed to
bf', but what was actually said was something a little bit milder than that...
more like "oh, it probably isn't worth the trouble, since formula is so much
easier and babies do so well on it, you know."
She was given "The Shot" to dry up her milk
after each of her three children were born...you know, the shot (I forget
the name of the drug) that has since been banned because it was found to
cause many awful side effects, up to and sometimes including Death! :-(


Well, the main problem with 'the shot' is that is simply doesn't work. Women
lactate anyway.

After my Mom listened to my spiels on the benefits & wonders of
breastmilk/BFing, she expressed some sadness that her generation was treated
so poorly by the medical establishment when it came to childbirth issues.


Yup. That's true. Out in my car I have a book, a novel, actually, called "A
Proper Marriage," by Doris Lessing. She was considered something of a radical
writer, but the book, written in, IIRC, the 1950's, and set during WWII gives
an absolutely horrifying picture of childbirth (and breastfeeding) at the time.
Too lazy to go out and get it right now, but Mattie, our heroine, is simply
ignored during most of her labor. She doesn't get to see her baby for almost a
day after giving birth, then sees her for only a few minutes at a time, for
feedings. SHe, and all the other mothers in the maternity home do breastfeed
(story takes place in Rhodesia, among the upper class white settlers) their
babies, but on a strict schedule of course. Soon after returning home from the
hospital, Mattie, and all her friends, quickly wean, worn down by listening to
their babies scream for hours between their strict 4 hour feeding schedules and
watching their milk supplies dry away.

Notes from her Baby Book: "Broke 2am feeding at 2 weeks; Stopped 10pm bottle
5 weeks; Stopped 2pm bottle 7 weeks, went on 3 meals daily."


I think this schedule was actually a little unusual for the time. Most of my
sources indicate that babies were kept on 5 feeds a day (4 hourly from 6 a.m.
to 10 p.m.) for the first several months. Even back in the 40's Spock wrote
that babies usually aren't ready for 3 meals a day until somehwere between 4
and 10 months.
(OTOH, I have another baby care book written by a guy with some rather unusual
ideas [maybe this was the book your mother was using!] who believed that babies
should be gotten onto solids based diets as soon as possible, weaned from the
bottle/breast by 3-4 months, and on 3 meals a day by 2-3 months of age.)


Naomi
CAPPA Certified Lactation Educator

(either remove spamblock or change address to to e-mail
reply.)
 




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