Of course, if we are talking about a woman who has lived her entire life in a tiny village in a forest, hundreds of miles away from any industrial centers, drank only the water from a clear, unpolluted stream, ate only the food she grew herself in an unpolluted patch without using any chemical substances on the plants, spent all her day in the fresh unpolluted air, never suffers from stress, anxiety, let alone depression, and never took any medication, I might agree that her breast-milk is better than formula.
However.
If we are talking about a woman who spends her life breathing in polluted air, has consumed a mountain of junk food and processed foods, has devoured a barrel of over-the-counter and a bucket of prescription meds, suffers from anxiety and mood swings, has smoked a little, has drunk some alcohol, is not averse to drinking a soda now and then, spends hours every week in a car and most of each day sitting in front of a screen, and eats genetically modified crap, there is no way her breasts can produce anything healthier than what a formula company can.
So the idiotic “breast is best” propaganda is nothing but an attempt by the ultra-conservative organizations to force women back into housewifery. It feeds into the consumerism of the immature, and a myth is born.
As for me, I am planning to breast-feed. The only reason is that my mother says it is more convenient than bottle-feeding, and I trust her. Then again, my sister says it is less convenient that bottle-feeding, and I trust her, too. So I will try and see what works for me.
Of course, if breast-feeding becomes onerous or doesn’t work out, I will stop. A self-sacrificing Mommy is a tragedy for a child and will haunt her for as long as the child lives. And if it doesn’t work out immediately, I’m not the kind of a monster who lets a child scream in hunger – dooming her to all kinds of eating disorders, alcoholism and a smoking addiction later in life* – just to please some imaginary controlling authority.
If it does work out, I have asked specialists and they unanimously insist that there is absolutely nothing in maternal milk past 6 months that can be even remotely beneficial to a baby. So there is no logical reason to breast-feed past 6 months.
Now the only problem I will have to face is fighting off a crowd of crazed La Leche League harpies who, as I keep hearing, bully and persecute women in maternity wards. I plan to quote the Constitution at them and promise to sue for violating my freedom of religion. I hope this complicated sentence will confuse their tiny little brains so badly that they will leave me in peace.
If anybody has any experience with defending yourself and your baby from the LLL freakazoids, please share. I hope that I don’t have to specify that La Leche League folks are not welcome on this blog.
* “The infant who is neglected (insufficiently fed) or who is over-protected (over-fed) in the course of being nursed, might become an orally-fixated person. Said oral-stage fixation might have two effects: (i) the neglected child might become a psychologically dependent adult continually seeking the oral stimulation denied in infancy, thereby becoming a manipulative person in fulfilling his or her needs, rather than maturing to independence; (ii) the over-protected child might resist maturation and return to dependence upon others in fulfilling his or her needs. Theoretically, oral-stage fixations are manifested as garrulousness, smoking, continual oral stimulus (eating, chewing objects), and alcoholism. Psychologically, the symptoms include a sarcastic, oral sadistic personality, nail biting, oral sexual practices (fellatio, cunnilingus, analingus, irrumatio), et cetera.”
Do you know any sarcastic, oral sadistic personalities (meaning, people who wound with words)? They were left to scream in hunger in infancy.
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