Alliance Breastfeeding

There have been a couple articles lately in the press about breastfeeding not being the best… that studies that show benefits to breastfeeding are weak, limited, etc. Interesting that this comes right before World Breastfeeding Week… Oh well, that’s to be expected, I guess.

But… one thing they probably did get right was that breastfeeding is NOT best. Shocking? Well, it’s true. It’s simply the biological norm. It’s an extension of pregnancy and birth that is the designed or hardwired expectation for both the mother and the infant. The “normal” way to feed babies. Other infant foods need to be measured against breastmilk. Period. Because breastfeeding is normal.

Ack! But then we have to talk about the downsides to NOT giving breastmilk to a baby and that makes MANY people uncomfortable. Because it’s not common for people to breastfeed, or at least to breastfeed for more than a few weeks. We’ve been indoctrinated for decades to believe that alternatives to breastmilk are safe and risk-free and so we see no real harm in using them if it becomes inconvenient or sadly impossible for us to breastfeed. But formula is not risk-free, even though it is quite common. And most people equate common with normal. The exception has literally become the rule in this case. Common and normal have two entirely different meanings.

Merriam-Webster definition of Normal and Merriam-Webster definition of Common.

…..Continue reading Breast is no longer best..