Much of the current memes circulating on social media platforms extols the wonders of human milk or breast milk. We read, "The Impressive Power of Breast Milk" in Discover Magazine. Or we go online at a Medela website and read, "The Healing Power of Human Milk." Or an article that circulated last year on Facebook, "The Healing Power of Breast Milk Will Amaze You." That article included pictures of pumped milk in Lansinoh bags, one bag of white milk and one bag of orange-tinted milk containing high levels of carotene that supposedly combated a baby's illness. (High levels of carotene are present in colostrum causing the milk to look very orange) If a woman doesn't pump her milk, she may never know the color. We do know that human milk can be of various hues from greenish, gray, blue to orange. Women question their own milk, if the color does not fit the image of the cow's milk they bought at the store.
One of the more recent meme's circulating on Facebook was a picture of Tormund from Game of Thrones with a white milk mustache that had the words, "The Awesome Power of Your Milk." The mischievous Tormund displayed a rather humorous tale of why people called him Giantsbane. Tormund says that he got so strong because at the age of 10 he suckled for 3 months at the breast of a giant. The giant woman thought he was a baby.
The meme struck me as just another meme extolling the virtues of human milk. Another headline where breastfeeding has disappeared from the text replaced by the words human milk or breast milk. Yet was this tale really about this giant of a man, at the tender age of 10 ingesting human milk? The word Tormund used was suckle and so the tale he told was not just about ingesting human milk. He was a 10 year old boy breastfeeding. The sexual innuendo in that scene between Tormund, Brienne of Tarth, and Jaime seemed so Hollywood. There have been many cultures in our human past where children of 10 or older still breastfed, mostly for comfort. Yet current Americanized culture confuses breasts/breastfeeding with sexuality. The scene in Game of Thrones seems mostly influenced by our current culture that pairs breasts/breastfeeding with sexuality.
But whoever created the meme seemed unaware of the implications but rather saw this as an opportunity to promote human milk. Maybe I am wrong thinking the author didn't understand the intent of Game of Thrones. Maybe that is why the choice to use human milk in the text of the meme rather than breastfeeding. Who knows? The internet reality seems to be one of proclaiming the greatness of "the milk" and avoiding the words breastfeeding.
When we think that human milk is the equivalent terminology to breastfeeding, then we have created a cognitive dissonance. They are not equivalent actions. Human milk is about separation, separating the milk from the mother. Human milk comes into sight because of products like pumps and bottles. Human milk is pumped because mother and baby are separated. Breastfeeding is the scary unknown. We cannot easily measure it, see the amount of it or even the color of it. It is a natural mystery that science believes it must uncover. But in uncovering its mystery by stripping it into many of its components, are we encouraging breastfeeding? Or are we making the simplicity of the natural function of the breast into a fragmented, unintelligible science used to benefit the infant formula and human milk industries?
Noam Chomsky wrote, "Science is a bit like the joke about the drunk who is looking, under a lampost for a key that he lost on the other side of the street, because that's where the light is. It has no other choice."
How blinded is our science when driven by the infant formula and human milk industries? What do we, the common people, believe to be true when the driving force of our science is beholden to pump companies and to building a human milk industry? Is breastfeeding a priority? A hospital in Philadelphia advertises its NICU with an article entitled, "The Power of Pumping." I'd rather see the power of breastfeeding as an article. But, of course, how many babies are allowed to breastfeed in NICUs?
How blinded is our science, when a human milk researcher states that the purpose of research is to create a company or a product? (stated to me on Facebook) What are we advertising when human milk is considered the same thing as breastfeeding? How many women are breastfeeding and how many are human milk feeding? If our science views breastfeeding and human milk feeding as equivalent actions, then is our vision clear or cloudy regarding our science. Will we ever consider that breast pumps might be creating breastfeeding failure? Or will our corporate science refuse to consider that possibility? When breastfeeding and human milk feeding are lumped into one category in research, how accurate will that science be?
In the following patent owned by Medela (US Patent #9517294), the inventors mention breast-pump dependent mothers of premature babies because they state that premature infants are not capable of feeding at the breast. While I recognize that some premature babies are too unstable to breastfeed, I wonder about the research regarding premature infants inability to breastfeed. Is this belief based on evidence? And is science blinded by corporate desire to sell pumps? Note the abstract only mentions newborns.
"When a baby is born premature, the baby is often in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and may not be able to breastfeed. Thus, the mother is solely breast-pump dependent. Breast-pump dependent mothers do not experience this unique sucking pattern from their premature infants who are not capable of feeding directly from the breast. Because this unique sucking pattern appears to be a critical "first step" in establishing an adequate milk volume, breast pump-dependent mothers with premature infants may miss this critical stimulation, negatively affecting their ability to produce a sufficient amount of milk. "
Our belief about what is possible and what is not possible is based on evidence or the need to sell products. While this patent mentions premature infants, the abstract states newborns. Thus a pump supposedly intended for mothers whose babies cannot breastfeed because of their prematurity, is also created for a market that will include newborns. How many newborns cannot breastfeed or cannot because of medical interference in the birthing process? Innate inability of premature or newborn babies, or some other unexplored reason?
Is human milk powerful or is it breastfeeding that is powerful? Why do you believe what you believe? When pumps become the standard equipment promoted for breastfeeding mothers, are we supporting breastfeeding? or human milk?
Copyright 2019 Valerie W. McClain
"Is human milk powerful or is it breastfeeding that is powerful? " Both. in different ways. (And the ideal is both together, but it can't always be achieved. ) Just as infant formula and bottle feeding are both damaging in different ways, both by their presence and the absence of breastfeeding and/or human milk. Which of course is women's milk. The really interesting question is why a whole culture, including breastfeeding advocates in that culture, say that bovine mothers produce cows milk while women produce human milk. What does that tell us about the value placed on the respective mothers?
ReplyDeleteMaureen, Human milk is powerful in our society because it offers corporations the possibilities of profits, products, and patents. Isolated from the breast and put into bottles it does not provide skin-to-skin contact, warmth from the mother, and human milk does not retain some of its important immunological properties due to pasteurization and in the case of Prolacta the addition of synthetic genetically engineered vitamins/minerals What studies are done comparing the health of babies exclusively bottlefed human milk versus babies exclusively breastfed? Haven't heard of any study making such comparisons. Breastfeeding is far more powerful than human milk because it also has protective properties for mothers (lower breast and ovarian cancers, lowers heart disease,etc.). Human milk by itself may protect an infant from dental cavities but it can not improve an infant's jaw development and prevent over-crowding of teeth like breastfeeding does. An exclusively breastfeeding mother is independent, a cost saving that in this day and age is a necessity. She is not dependent on a product and in times of emergency need not be concerned that some product may not be available.
ReplyDeleteBreastmilk is powerful, we need to change the thinking when we hear the word milk. Cow milk has been pushed so heavily onto society that is the firm animal they think of when they hear the word 'milk'. We need to change the narrative, when I hear the word milk, now I only think about human milk and breastfeeding, maybe because I am a breast-feeding woman, who is breaking societal norms, and creating my own!
ReplyDelete