It seems to be one of those double standards that a lot of people are still okay with for some reason. The one that still gets me is "women having it all" (children and a career). Why can't this be "parents" instead? We're not all living in the 1950s anymore.
I can't produce milk but I can do everything else. So in the middle of the night when the breast is done if baby is unsettled I can take care of this, which can take ages.
Sharing this exhausting and sometimes excruciating workload is a big part of parenthood here. It is also ultimately highly rewarding; editing this as she's just about fallen asleep in my arms, gorgeous thing.
I am all for a 50/50 split if both parents want to work or even a stay at home dad. But, it's more than just breastfeeding.
Giving birth is hard from a few weeks and arguably months before to a few weeks and or months after. That naturally tends to taking a few months off and hey infant needs a lot of care so when not extend that a little. Add a second pregnancy at 1-3 years after the fist and it's easy to end up with a stay at home mom.
Now, this is far from the only pattern, but it is common for real biological reasons.
I'm not even saying it's a 50/50 split because unless you're exceedingly well off, or perhaps consulting from home, it is not going to be that initially - if you want baby to be breastfed, which is ideal whenever possible, someone's got to bring in the income.
I merely took objection to the exclusionary term that is motherhood, because in this context I deal with screaming babies a lot - as a father. That is not "motherhood", it is "parenthood".
Unless it's all about single women bringing their babies up alone? I saw no reference to that in TFA.
It's a bit like craftsman vs craftsperson, not that I really wanted to go there. But there are real reasons for using more inclusionary terms even when the traditional "feel more natural" (to the speaker / author) or whatever.
The AAP and WHO both endorse this position, and I can't find a reputable leading health org that argues otherwise.
The more I read about the basis of the claim though the more confused I get.
Parenting advice sites all point out that it helps child immunity. But the underlying studies are based on the ingestion of immunoglobulin, which doesn't even survive digestion. So essentially it protects the esophagus against waterborne illnesses, ie, mainly those no longer common in the developed world. That definitely makes sense in terms of evolutionarily-relevant child mortality threats, but that context is always omitted.
Or you get claims of improved cognition, then find meta-analysis that can't reproduce any results after five years.
Parenting guidance seems full of replication crisis issues, even in the medical literature. That's been the most eye opening thing about becoming a parent... people's strong interest in parenting makes it hard to explain the poor state of the data on the topic.
That's not the whole story (re: immunoglobulin). You're right in broad-brush strokes. The abstract at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12850343 has some quick notes on the broader context. For immunoglobulin in particular, when you say "doesn't survive digestion," you're missing the substantial amounts of IgA (ok, milk sIgA) in the intestine. There it will bind with lots of bad stuff, preventing said bad stuff from causing an immune response. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257684/ is one place to read about this.)
You also must consider all the leukocytes in breast milk. Both maternal and infant infections cause huge increases in leukocyte production. There is a theory (hard to test) that babies like to stick their hands in mom's mouth while breastfeeding so that mom gets baby germs, and then mom will make appropriate leukocytes. Bizarrely, baby backwash (into the breast! while feeding!) also leads to maternal immunological response. Fun fact: breast milk from the same mom can vary in color dramatically (from blue to white to yellow) and a lot of that has to do with the contents, with yellow in particular generally having a high leukocyte content.
I'm a little biased. We got a lot of information pushing us not to supplement from health professionals and organizations, and nothing on the risks of failure to thrive or the case for supplementation. We had a calorie deficit no one caught, because measuring breast milk consumption is opaque, and no one talks about low consumption with the same fervor. They should though, it's an issue that drove an entire industry of wet nurses before formula (who were in turn criticised as unnatural in their day). They say breast if possible, but never detail how to tell the difference between just doing the hard work, or just banging your head against an immovable wall.
This inconsistency in advice, even though calorie deficits are incredibly dangerous, and more clearly so,[0] worries me there's a bias against technological development that keeps us from giving advice about both risks (or really much at all about the more important risk here).
[0] insofar as there are conflicting metaanalyses on breastmilk, but the signal is far stronger here, no one is publishing research suggesting failure to thrive is no big deal.
That's actually a great example of what troubles me.
If you click through to read the underlying research you get a massive jumble of conflicted studies, including several meta-analyses that fail to find any significant results.
This gets reduced to "breastfeeding lowers the risk of breast cancer" in parenting lit without any context about how radically uncertain this area is.
Becoming a parent and actually reading the underlying lit has nearly destroyed my faith in medical research.
What's troubling is that there is no rational discussions, its always "breast is best" or "emotional impact statement here"
Of course we can all agree that in ideal circumstances, breast milk is the best thing for babies, its unique biologically adapted (even between feeds) formula is impossible to mass manufacture and biologicals like leukocytes are impossible to add in.
However, if the mother does not produce enough milk, then failure to thrive concerns take over, supplement.
If mother is post partum, dad can take over and supplement.
People just eat the tagline these days instead of doing a basic cost/benefit analysis and thinking a little bit for themselves.
Add to that the seeming acceptance of bad science and you end up with anti-vaxxers.
> The more I read about the basis of the claim though the more confused I get.
The “breast is best” narrative is partly an outgrowth of the Nestle boycott. In developed nations, the difference between breastfeeding and formula feeding is pretty minimal. Minor immune benefits for breastfeeding. Minor weight benefits for formula feeding (formula fed babies gain weight more rapidly as nutrition is always available). However, in developing nations, (powdered) formula is far less safe due to lack of sanitation and formula producers have gotten a lot of justified criticism over their marketing campaigns in developing nations.
In an ideal case, breastfeeding seems strictly superior in terms of the baby’s health even in developed nations. The benefits of breastfeeding vs sanitary formula are small but seem to exist. However, the ideal case is often not the actual situation.
My problem with the lactation advocacy is that many advocates ignore actual difficulties with breastfeeding. Low/insufficient milk supply, pain during feeding, inability to share the burden with a partner, sleep impact, isolation (for women uncomfortable with public breastfeeding or living in places where this is frowned on), career impact, etc. It’s often presented as if any issues are failings of the mother. “Pain? You’re definitely doing it wrong. Supply issues? Just keep breastfeeding exclusively and your underweight baby will be fine. The fact that your baby is in the 1st percentile for weight at 3 months and always hungry doesn’t mean you need to supplement.” Etc.
Of course, some people see that as an anti-breastfeeding movement.
The rhetoric around breastfeeding is insane. Trying to do legitimate research online about it is almost impossible.
My least favorite part of breastfeeding advocacy is when people say it's free. Yes, it's free, as long as you ignore the extra time it takes for the mother that can't be shared with other caregivers (unless you pump, which takes more time), extra food you have to eat, the pump and various accessories, and the time spent cleaning all the little pump parts. Yeah, other than that it's free.
> Add a second pregnancy at 1-3 years after the fist and it's easy to end up with a stay at home mom.
It's 2018, you have the power to control when you (or your female SO) get pregnant (you have had this for quite a while, actually). There's no logical reason to "oops, now I'm a stay at home <whatever>".
I'm not OP, so I can't read their mind, but I don't think they meant that the second baby happens on accident. Instead, what they're saying is that if you want to have kids and not have them spaced out too much, it ends up making a lot of sense for the woman to become a stay at home mom in situations where the family can afford it.
When giving birth at the hospital the nurses was all saying "See you in 1-3 years!". It's nothing uncommon indeed. After that ordeal our thought was more like "In your dreams!". No, it wasn't one of the fast, uncomplicated births, it was more like suddenly getting overrun by doctors and other white robes, whisked away into operation and then a very broken back for six months.
Not sure where you’re at now, but a common experience is that the memories of how difficult childbirth and newborns are start to recede and then you’re ready to have another go.
The brain is exceptionally good at repressing bad memories. The effects of lack of sleep on memory / brain function might play a big part of it. (Just speculating from personal experience, I have no formal knowledge).
Name one thing, apart from breastfeeding, that men can't do that women can, when it comes to taking care of a child. Why is it, then, that it's still "unmanly" to change diapers, or god forbid, even be a stay-at-home dad?
Take care of an infant while recovering from birth without taking extra time of. That's not a huge difference, but it is economically significant for many couples especially when they have physically demanding jobs.
Nonsense. My sister-in-law is a professor and my brother is the stay-at-home dad, for the sake of her career. They're on kid #2 now. He does all the nighttime stuff so she can sleep and be refreshed for work.
I think it's mostly because, in a very real sense, men have always been able to have it all. Men have always been able to have children and a career (because their wives stayed home to raise them!), so the quote isn't as poignant for them.
BUT -- I do think it's actually useful to talk about "parents having it all", because all those breadwinner men with stay-at-home wives missed out on a lot of quality bonding time with their kids. They may have thought they had it all, but they actually missed out on developing real, meaningful relationships with their kids.
It sounds like you've completely misunderstood the aphorism "raising kids and a having a career". It's not the state of being a biological parent that's sought after (which yes parents have automatically) but of _raising_ children.
You can't raise children in absentia. If you're concentrating on your career you simply can't dedicate yourself to raising children.
So, no fathers haven't always had it all because having it all is a practical impossibility in almost all walks of life.
I think you and I are saying exactly the same thing here. That's exactly what I meant by "they actually missed out on developing real, meaningful relationships with their kids."
The bulk of mainstream media. A quick google will show that, though interestingly it also shows some newer articles raising the same point as the GP there.
