“Aggressive marketing tactics are not unique to poor countries, nor is government inertia and nor is infant death. During the 1980s in the USA, while 200,000 babies a year were hospitalized for diarrhea, infant feeding product promotion intensified. A later analysis of 1988 data found that one in five of the US babies who died at between seven days and 12 months of age did so because they were not breastfed.” Gabrielle Palmer, The Politics of Breastfeeding
It’s been raining avocadoes for the last month. They fall off my Avocado Tree, four or five at a time. My nemesis, Squirrel One or is it Squirrel Two, pelts me with half eaten avocadoes. I have yet to eat one of my avocadoes, because I let the tree grow too tall. It’s taller than my mulberry tree which towers over my house. I haven’t the energy to drag a ladder out and use my fruit picker to get the fruit. So they rocket through space and hit the ground, a fine example of gravity.
Carolina wrens love my yard, and I love to listen to them. They are such petite birds with upturned tails and loud, mouthy voices. One would think that little birds would have little voices? Last year one couple had 5 babies in my mailbox that is affixed to my house (not used for posting mail, just used for friends to leave messages). The wrens ousted the frogs that lived in the mailbox. The mailbox sits below a light I turn on at night. The bugs love the light, and the frogs got fat and sassy—that is until the wrens moved in and built more comfy quarters. Now the frogs are homeless and squatting on top of my outdoor light. This year the wrens built a nest in my Greenstalk vertical planter. Why? Because there was a vacancy of plants in the Greenstalk. I was delighted because I could watch the family from my window.
Early one morning the wrens were making such a racket, that I went to the window to figure out what was going on. There, next to the Greenstalk was the neighborhood predator. Yes, a cat. He was quite the handsome, well-fed fella, but handsome or not, he was a predator. I joined the chorus of parent wrens in yelling at him. He jumped away and I made the assumption that the baby wrens were OK because I could still hear their voices from their nest. But sadly the cat must have damaged the two babies in the nest. I smelled that dead animal smell and realized that we had not saved the babies. I buried the babies. Later, the mother or maybe the father wren perched on the Greenstalk with a big worm in her/his beak and hopped around looking for the babies. (Both wren parents feed their babies). I watched as she or he searched the Greenstalk. She looked at me and I told her that they died and I buried them. She seemed to understand and flew away, and has not returned. I cried. I cry more often than I use to, the world we live in can be so cruel.
Is it silly to cry for baby birds, when human babies die from the carelessness of an industry? (The Abbot infant formula scandal) Or silly to cry over dead baby birds, when human children are slaughtered in a school? (Uvalde school massacre, among the many gun massacres in the US) I cry for the human babies and children, too. It’s not silly, it’s human to care. The older I get the more readily the tears flow. I see a human callousness in our society that is beyond redemption.
The Abbott infant formula scandal is being defined in the media and Congress as a problem of formula shortages caused by supply chain issues. The deaths of at least 9 infants and hospitalizations of at least 25 infants, and un-counted infants sickened becomes a supply chain issue. And by the way don’t mention the word, breastfeeding, because that is considered inappropriate. A society that has a shortage of infant formula but cannot promote breastfeeding is what I call, backward thinking. Mothers are about to have babies in the midst of infant formula shortage and breastfeeding promotion is considered an inappropriate suggestion?
As for the Uvalde school massacre, we are made to believe that we should not question the role of 300 police waiting for an hour to break down the unlocked classroom door to stop one white male teen determined to kill as many children as possible? Yes, this is the world we currently live in. A nation that does not protect mothers and babies and children is a nation beyond redemption. It’s a callousness and cruelty that should not go un-noticed.
Who re-defined hungry? Now we call it food insecure. Yes, it makes everyone feel better because we don’t have to think that US children go to bed at night hungry. Instead children are just food insecure. On the news yesterday the Biden Administration has redefined the word recession. So now we can blame the large number of homeless people on the homeless people, not the government. How dare they set up their tents near our homes? How dare those families stand on the street begging for jobs, food, & shelter? This is the United States, just hide it all, and pretend it doesn’t exist. We aren’t in a recession, you are just imagining it. Instead send over $50 billion to Ukraine to fight a proxy war. That is $50 billion that could be used to house the evicted, feed the hungry, and provide free health care. Nope.
What does this have to do with World Breastfeeding Week? Everything and nothing. A nation that doesn’t care about women, mothers, babies, and children, will not and cannot support breastfeeding. Breastfeeding has been redefined. Instead the word is becoming breastmilk. Instead of promoting breastfeeding, memes promote breastmilk. It is presumed that breastmilk is equivalent to breastfeeding. In a capitalist society breastmilk feeding is becoming the priority because it supports the economy. Breastmilkfeeding requires the buying of pumps, bottles, pacifiers, childcare services, etc. And often breastmilk feeding becomes formula feeding with the added cost of formula. The growth of donor milk banks is tied to women pumping and donating their milk. Now baby showers not only gift mothers with baby bottles but with breast pumps. I read recently an article that was promoting sending donor milk in emergency situations. Ever been in a hurricane or flood? The first to go is electricity. How will donor milk be stored in areas that are trying to recover from a hurricane or flood? Until the infrastructure is repaired, sending donor milk seems short-sighted. Why not focus on promoting breastfeeding, having volunteer breastfeeding counselors or IBCLCs available to help mothers who need to relactate? Seven years ago I wrote about breastfeeding advocates in the Philippines using breastfeeding tents in the aftermath of Hurricane Haiyan. https://vwmcclain.blogspot.com/2015/04/typhoon-haiyanyolanda-part-2-rescuing.html
In the midst of a recession with large numbers of people unemployed, families living on the streets; it seems logical to me that promoting breastfeeding makes economic sense, and is less wasteful of resources. Single use plastic pumps and plastic bottles and nipples/teats are thrown away into our overflowing landfills. Plastic is a huge problem for our environment. Breastmilk feeding is not free for mothers or for societies. Breastfeeding is actually the free option. It lowers the burden of plastic pollution, and the pollution caused by the dairy industry.
While I feel sadness for the state of the world, I do envision a world where we don’t need a World Breastfeeding Week because large numbers of women around the world are breastfeeding. I salute all the women and men and organizations who have made it their mission to promote and support breastfeeding!
©2022 Valerie W. McClain
