Okay, this is pretty cool.

And I am amazed by the time and effort and skill it must have teken to get it all working.

But oh am I glad they aren’t my neighbors.

ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH! Some people are impossible to argue with.

So I do have very strong opinions on breastfeeding, and I have strong opinions on how our society fails to support women who breastfeed and in choosing breastfeeding. I try not to judge individuals who don’t breastfeed because we all have our personal reasons and different situations and all that, though I can’t help but think badly of really shallow reasons such as “I didn’t breastfeed because I didn’t want to ruin my perky, perfect tits.” Come on.

But look, while most formula fed babies will be fine, there are risks to it. And that is all I was saying. But apparently when I say that “a few babies do die from not being breastfed” she reads it as me saying “formula is a death sentence and every woman who chooses it is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mother.” Paraphrased, of course.

The discussion started as to whether low breastfeeding rates were something to be sad about or not. She thinks its silly to be sad about them when so many formula fed babies do just fine. I disagree.

Oh, and apparently when the American Academy of Pediatrics lists one of the good things about breastfeeding as “in addition, postneonatal infant mortality rates in the United States are reduced by 21% in breastfed infants,” that doesn’t actually mean that they think feeding formula instead of breastfeeding can slightly an infant’s risk of death! Oh no, it is all coincidental because there are myriad other factors involved. And saying that there is a potential for 3.6 billion dollars in health care savings annually in the United States by improving breastfeeding doesn’t actually mean that they think babies who are not breastfed are more likely to get sick and be hospitalized. I’m misinterpreting them terribly. (Both from Breastfeding and the Use of Human Milk.

She keeps paying lip service to “breast is best” and saying that she agrees with it, but she always adds qualifiers that makes it seem as if “breast as best” doesn’t really mean anything at all. And she says that I am irresponsible for posting such untrue things as claiming that any babies have ever died from not being breastfed because there is no evidence (and the AAP information I’ve linked to doesn’t count because she could post links to just as many reputable studies showing the opposite but she won’t because she doesn’t see the point… yeah…) and she knows plenty of babies who were perfectly healthy despite formula and her own kids are just fine…

I’ll spare you most of the posts, but just tell me if the following exchange makes any sense at all:

I posted:

My last post was a bit disorganized, so just one more time so I can clarify what I am saying..

You keep acting as if I am claiming that formula is a death sentence and I am not. What I am saying is that while most formula fed babies do fine, not breastfeeding does increases the risk of death. That doesn’t mean it isn’t an acceptable risk in many cases.

I strap my daughter securely in her carseat every time we go out, but carseats do not provide 100% protection, so I am still accepting a small chance that she could die in a car crash every time I take her out in the car. But we have to live, you know? So I do the best to ameliorate the risk, but there still is a risk.

It is the same with formula. Commercial formula is the only thing that even comes close to breastmilk, so if formula were not considered acceptable, what would mothers who can’t breastfeed do? Let their babies starve? But even for some who can, lifestyle or other factors make the risk of formula to be acceptable, just like the risk of traveling in a car is acceptable.

But there is strong evidence that breastfeeding does result in lowered risk of death and lowered rates of many diseases and conditions. Taken individually the risk to any particular baby is low, but by the rule of large numbers, nation-wide some babies are going to fall onto the short end of that particular stick and so there are some babies out there who will die or get very sick as a result of not being breastfed.

If I couldn’t have breastfed I would have used formula because there is nothing else. If I couldn’t have stayed home with my baby - or had been bored staying home and wanted to return to work, I would have used formula because I suck at pumping. It is very unlikely that my daughter would be any worse of for these things, but it is still a possibility that she would have been.

Even in ideal conditions, not all women who physically could would choose to breastfeed. But if society were more supportive of breastfeeding and education was better and there wasn’t so much misinformation out there. And it makes me sad that women who would choose to breastfeed are denied that choice because society sucks - and that some of their babies do suffer and even occasionally die because of that because choosing to breastfeed is made a lot harder for them than it should be.

You keep saying that breastfeeding is best - but what do you mean by that? If it didn’t reduce the risk of illness and even occasionally death, why would they bother to push breastfeeding is best so much? You keep saying that breastfeeding is best but keep wanting to deny that that turns around to mean that babies who are not breastfed are at greater risk.

To which she replied:

When I say breastfeeding is best it’s because it is.

But I often follow that up with saying that doesn’t make the alternative, formula, bad. It’s acceptable by the AAP, the organization you have referenced many times.

I am not going to commont paragraph for paragraph because I said I don’t want to continue this debate. I appreciate you trying to clarify your last post however.

All this talk is meaningless in so many ways because, as you mentioned something about anecdotal evidence many posts back, many of us are sitting here quite anecdotely ff happy and healthy adults, who have healthy ff kids. Conversely there are bf babies/adults who are sickly. Do what is best for you and your family and leave others to do what they will do.

We make choices every day about our children. I mostly ff, but I briefly bf. I circed. I fully vaccinate on schedule. I don’t spank. I choose to delay solids. So what? Doesn’t make me more of a mother than anyone else and I dont’ claim it.

To which I replied:

< < "All this talk is meaningless in so many ways because, as you mentioned something about anecdotal evidence many posts back, many of us are sitting here quite anecdotely ff happy and healthy adults, who have healthy ff kids. Conversely there are bf babies/adults who are sickly. Do what is best for you and your family and leave others to do what they will do." >>

When did I say that formula fed kids/adults couldn’t be healthy? I said many times that most are healthy.

When did I say that all breastfed children were healthy? I never said anything like that.

What I did say is that statistically kids who are not breastfed are at greater risk. The risk is low - infant mortality rates overall are quite low, and twenty percent or so of a very low number is a much lower number - but that doesn’t mean it is nonexistant.

And when did I try to make choices for other women or say that women couldn’t choose formula if that was what they felt was best for their families?

What I did say was that a woman doesn’t have the option of choosing to breastfeed (or at least that it is made a lot harder than it should be) if she doesn’t have the support and correct information that she needs. And that it is a lot harder to choose based on what is best for her if society and her in-laws/parents/significant other or whoever are influencing her choice by telling her that breastfeeding is dirty and animalistic and gross.

Even if every woman had good support and information and breastfeeding was universally accepted as something normal and natural, many would still choose not to breastfeed, but the breastfeeding rates would be higher. And so yes it makes me sad that that when breastfeeding is so good for babies that women who would choose to breastfeed are unable to because society fails to support them and yes that while most babies will be just fine on formula anyway, a few will die as a result of this.

I’m NOT saying that formula is a death sentence or that the risk shouldn’t be acceptable for many people - just that the risk exists.

I am not trying to say that women can’t choose formula if that is what they believe is best in their situation.

I am saying that it is sad that while most babies grow up happy and healthy on formula, a few unfortunate ones suffer and even die because society failed to support their mothers’ choices to breastfeed.

So I did not say that there weren’t many healthy, happy adult out there who were formula fed. I did not say that there weren’t sickly breastfed children out there, and I certainly never tried to tell a woman that she couldn’t breastfeed if that was what she felt was best for herself and her family. You keep telling me that I’m saying these things, and I’m not sure how to make it any clearer that I am not.

To which she replied:

Here’s one for ya’

Where did I say that you said that I said what you keep saying I said?

Seriously, you keep posting at me telling me I am telling you what you are saying, lol.

You quoted me, and in that quote I didn’t *SAY* you *said* anything.

I was just addressing a general audience. Everything is going to be Ohhhkayyy.

Besides which, I already said I have nothing more to add because there is nothing more to debate from my standpoint.

If we agree on some of the finer points, then I suggest dropping it because our larger points are not to be reckoned with

It was something like the four hundredth post in a very long thread which most people had quit reading three-hundred-and-twenty-posts ago or something, and it was about the tenth post in our particular exchange, and it was addressed to me and posted as a reply to my last post… but apparently she wasn’t actually talking to me and it had nothing to do with what I was saying? Okay.

*bangs head on table*

And since the whole point of the conversation was that not breastfeeding does have some risks, I’m not sure what it is that we were supposed to have agreed upon.

And it’s not just in this one argument. She is always like this. If anyone posts anything good about breastfeeding or anything about reasons to breastfeed, she’s always one of the first to respond, and she always responds something along the lines of “how dare you judge formula feeding moms!”

On Tuesday Munchkin and I made our way to the pool and changed into our suits for her first swim lesson. Our second mistake (the first was that she didn’t have a nap that day) was to change in one of those small privacy rooms so that she couldn’t run off rather than changing in the main changing area. For all that she loves climbing into our lower cabinets and closing the door after herself, she hates small rooms. Crying ensued.

Then I forced my poor girl to have a pre-swim shower as pool rules require. She used to be okay with showering, but for some reason, she is terrified of the shower now. This brought on more crying.

All in all, it was not a happy girl who entered the pool last Tuesday.

She cried for the first part then calmed down. Still, she was so cold that she was shaking terribly, and she didn’t seem to enjoy herself. At least not until the instructor had us move from the big pool to the kiddie pool which is kept quite warm. She loved that so much that she threw a temper tantrum when it was time to get out.

I swore an oath to myself that she would have a nap before her next lesson on Thursday.

Alas, on Thursday I didn’t get seen for my 2:15 appointment until nearly 4:00 because the doctor had to deliver a baby. By the time we got home and I got her down for her nap, poor Munchkin only had about fifteen minutes to sleep before I had to wake her up to get ready to go. Fortunately even a short nap can do wonders, and she was a much happier girl at the start of her lesson and seemed to enjoy herself quite a bit, though she still protests when asked to float on her back (with help, of course).

The only bad part was that by the halfway point of the lesson in the big pool she was shivering and shaking again. She still seemed to be having fun, but I felt bad seeing her so cold. Moving to the warm pool was nice, but she started shaking again just as soon as we got out and headed back to the changing room.

So this afternoon we bought her one of these. We got the blue one you see if you hover over “SEA.” It was forty-four dollars after tax, but it will be so worth it if it ends the terrible shivering. We also thought to get the most value out of it by buying one slightly too big – room to grow – and unisex so our son should be able to wear it when he’s older. After, you know, he’s born since he’s still fo negative age at the moment.

So now we just have to wait until next Tuesday to see how it works. And she will be having a good long nap before this lesson.

It’s winter again. I can hear that familiar scrape, scrape, scrape as my neighbor across the street shovels her walk.

It’s not really the first snow - that was a few days ago, but it was a piddly little thing that didn’t stick, so I’m not counting it. Now we have about an inch on the ground from last night.

We haven’t bought Munchkin new boots yet, but I think she can still squeeze into last year’s, though they are a little too small. So later I’m going to have to take her out and see what she thinks of the snow. Last year she wouldn’t even walk in it - she would just stand there until we came and picked her up or cried if we didn’t come fast enough.

This year she’s older though, so I hope she has fun. I just have to get her out there while it is still shallow enough.

:(

I assume that this is true for Canada too.

I want a Vanilla Coke now. Must have one while I still can.