this comic is related to this musing: Enfamil Breastfeeding Kit
|
|||
 
|
Breastfeeding Kit!40 comments to Breastfeeding Kit! |
||
|
Copyright © 2010 Mama is… - All Rights Reserved Bad Behavior has blocked 553 access attempts in the last 7 days. |
|||
[...] musing is related to this comic: Breastfeeding Kit! Category: talk talk [...]
LOL!!! When I saw that first picture I thought, oh no, that looks painful! It drives me nuts that they give these stinkin’ bags out at the hospital where I WORK. I bet if I took it upon myself to systematically market random products to patients, they’d call it a conflict of interests.
The formula is good for only one thing… stick it in your food storage closet and dispose of at expiration. Stress can cause us to lose our milk and if the baby was brand new, formula could be helpful. I’m sure there are other ways to provide nutrition, but it COULD be useful.
Ha ha that is great!! I am so happy I never got any samples in the mail, as I would have tantrumed about it!
Women need to band together and LEARN how to nurse, not keep formula in the cabinet “just in case.” What a slippery slope to supplementation…ACK! Obviously most women CAN breastfeed aeeing as how the human race survived quite a while without formula…ha ha!
Good one, Heather!
lol
i thought it was nursing pads too. hee hee
Heather,
I can never get enough of your work! Do you have plans for a “Mama-Is” book? Thanks for spreading the oxytocin love!
[...] in the Enfamil “Breastefeeding Kit” could possibly help mothers successfully nurse. See the cartoon. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title:”Mama is… muses on Enfamil Handouts”, summary:’A “Mama [...]
[...] Breastfeeding with Comfort and Joy, in addition to her other good ideas), complete with a link to a Hathor the Cow Goddess comic which is just perfect for this [...]
Oh gosh, so true. Thanks for that! I love it. Funny and sadly so true.
Enfamil just infuriates me. They can suck it, because if they had their way my baby couldn’t.
This is great. I’ll pass this on to all of ‘my mothers’.
That is fantastic… I wish that health care professionals would stop pushing artificial feeding on so many mothers (or at all), but with the money that formula companies spent to to butter up doctors (and our government) it is hard to fight back. If only families were more educated on breastfeeding and the dangers of artificial feeding we would need comics that hold this kind of truth!
I sent an comment on the Enfamil site “How is a sample of formula supposed to help a new mother BREASTFEED? Last time I checked, it was BREASTMILK that came out of my breasts, not formula”. LOL.
If you deliver at a hospital, they give you this HUGE bag that you will supposedly need to care for your baby after you leave. With my first, not knowing any better, I loaded it up. After about a week of lugging it around, I realized that, since I was nursing, all I really needed to do was toss a diaper and little pack of wipes into my purse, and we were good to go. So even the bag is useless… we won’t even go into what’s IN the bag. It all got thrown out.
This one reminds me of Amelia Bedelia
My husband received a box from the Similac “Strong Moms” program, because he’s a strong mom. It included two large cans of formula, to supplement his breast milk.
My baby is three months old and exclusively breastfed. My husband is still receiving coupons from them…because he’s a Strong Mom.
It’s pretty sad how disparaging the remarks about mothers who formula feed. But I suppose it is my fault, I apparently just didn’t try hard enough, what with the doctor recommended lactation teas, various supplements, and pumping. I tried everything until my daughter ended up being hospitalized for failure to thrive. Test after test, doctor after doctor watching me breastfeed, it was finally clear: I just couldn’t produce enough milk. Looking back at pictures is hard, she was incredibly emaciated looking and disturbing. She HAD to have something, and formula was the only option left. Don’t even start with me about breast milk banks, they are nonexistent in my area.
Perhaps people need to step back and think that about the fact that it is indeed possible for a mother to just not be able to breastfeed. Perhaps things will be different with my next child, but it’s pretty sad to see how hostile remarks about mothers who formula feed can be.
I was a little scared that the kit’s web page had a link on Breastfeeding Questions.
Funny thing is, they actually gave pretty acurate info.
Still, it’d be better to get more REAL breastfeeding support from a hospital than this marketing crap.
LOL!
This reminds me of a hideous advert we in the uk have to endure http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTcAZa1TETA
Erica, whilst I feel for you, YOU and others like you absolutely NEED to stop niavely believing the Dotors.
Did you see a Lactation Consultant? Did you actually get trained help from a successful breastfeeder? Or did you just trust a doctor, who unfortunately are not usually at all experienced or knowledgable about breastfeeding as it is not usually in their training (and, incidentally, I’d have put more emphasis on making sure she was latching perfectly, and not having any other teats such as a paci, and assessing her sucking ability, rather than using supplements and pumping, which wouldnt help if the underlying problem was the way or amount the baby was nursing.)
If you were producing *any* breastmilk, then with the right help you could have produced enough. That is NOT a slur on you, or a remark that you should have tried harder. I fully believe you tried your hardest with the help, support, and information given to you at the time.
Of course in less than ideal circumstances we have to do what we have to do, and in this case no one is blaming you for preventing your baby from starving.
“Lactavists” are not trying to get at you, make you feel guilty, or defensive, most lactavists have researched this immensly, and successfully breastfed. We are trying to empower, to get the right facts out there. But we are having an uphill struggle against Doctors, Midwives and Health Professionals who know shockingly little about breastfeeding, yet convince the parents that what they say is Gospel.
I hope that if you have more children, you do not encounter these same problems, or else that you get adequate help and go on to breastfeed successfully.
All the best.
Please don’t feel these comments are directed at you. I consider myself pro-mother. No matter how we feed our babies, we are all mothers. I applaud your efforts. YOU did the best you could and the system failed you. Unfortunately, we have a medical and corporate system in place that makes it more difficult for mothers to breastfeed. Free formula samples are a part of that. And if we try to change things, the system tries to pit mothers against each other with statements like: “We can’t do that because it would make formula-feeding mothers feel guilty.” or “People in the La Leche League are breastfeeding nazis.”
Perhaps the first step to a breastfeeding friendly society is to heal the rift between mothers.
Doctors didn’t fail me. I’m not a failure. “The system” wasn’t a failure. Free formula had nothing to do with it. There was no supplementation going on.
I saw several lactation consultants and indeed met with La Leche League. It even came down to them asking me if I had an eating disorder or just wasn’t eating enough (I was), as there was almost nothing being produced. My daughter had all the tests to check her sucking, her latching, everything. She was released from the hospital after 4 days when it was clear that it wasn’t her, it was me.
I don’t know why it is so hard to believe that I could not produce enough milk. I had all the help possible, not just doctors. Seriously, telling me that “with the right help you could have produced enough” when I did indeed seek every avenue of help is just absurd, as is telling me, “you absolutely NEED to stop niavely believing the Dotors”. My doctor has been a close personal friend for years (kinda awkward to have a friend sticking their fingers up your snatch), she bought me book after book on breastfeeding, going above and beyond what others would have. To lump together every doctor as an uncaring and unscrupulous person part of “big formula” is just naive.
Hi Erica,
It sounds like you tried really hard to breastfeed your baby, and tried every avenue of support available to you. It is perfectly possible that you are one of the 2% of mothers who genuinely do not produce enough milk due to not enough milk production cells being created during pregnancy, or similar problems.
The reason “Not enough milk” comes under so much scepticism is that it is the excuse dolled out by many health proffessionals who sadly, honestly do not know of the root cause because of lack of breastfeeding training. A large percentage of mothers are told that they cannot produce enough milk, when the real problem is down to positioning/attachment/bad latch/tongue tie etc, when really only 2% of mothers physically cannot make milk. Unfortunately, if you are one of the unlucky 2%, health proffessionals throwing the phrase around makes it very difficult to get understanding.
However, I have been visiting this website for a while now, and I dont think I’ve seen anything written against formula feeding mothers. It seems to me to be against Formula milk producing companies who undermine breastfeeding with sly advertising, free samples and blatant lies. Formula milk is the best option if you genuinely cannot breast feed, but milk companies are encouraging to use their milk instead of or along side breastmilk ‘just because’. I certainly have nothing against Formula feeding mothers; some genuinely cannot breastfeed and others are not aware of the facts, due to the unfortunate bias that exists within society today. I think most people feel the same.
Basically, dont feel like you have to defend yourself. You did the best you could, and I dont think anyone is judging you.
Rosalinde- Don’t feel bad. My cat had his own credit card at one point, sent to him for free in the mail. When I called the company to explain that family members who lack opposable thumbs can’t have their own credit cards, they WANTED TO TALK TO HANS HIMSELF TO CONFIRM!! (“Which part of ‘He’s a CAT?’ did you NOT understand?”) Just be glad they’re not sending formula samples to your pets!
Erica, your situation is familiar to me from what happened to a friend of mine, who had to raise her three on formula because the medication that keeps her alive also destroyed her milk supply, a fact that her doctor neglected to mention until her first baby was obviously not doing well (you know, not like it was important or anything!). All three girls are healthy, bright, and right on track physically.
HOWEVER–the vast majority of women who “fail” to breastfeed their babies could have done it if they had not been misinformed (often with the best of intentions), ill-supported, and bombarded with ads designed to foster the assumption that feeding a baby without guilt and anxiety must involve spending money on assorted products.
Formula can be a literal lifesaver. It is not and should not be the default way to feed all babies, or even most babies. No woman should find herself spending the extra money, time, and worry required by a formula feeding plan if she begins the nursing period with a healthy milk supply. This is especially true in these times, when every dollar has to be spent carefully. Hospitals should not allow formula manufacturers to attempt to convince all mothers to rely on a product that only a few will need–a product, moreover, that fosters dependency and creates an inevitable financial drain.
Mothers should be free to choose whether to breastfeed. This means having the facts, one of which is that formula, for the vast majority of babies, is not and never will be necessary. Another is that nursing demand fosters milk supply, so that anything that reduces nursing demand will reduce milk supply–in short, supplementation greatly increases the likelihood that a mother will have to budget for more and more formula even if it was recommended with the opposite end in mind!
Erica – None of us KNOW what YOU personally went through or what hoops you jumped through to try and breastfeed. We also don’t KNOW your doctor personally either.
However, when majority rules then we talk about the majority. Perhaps your doctor and experience is an exception to the rules of majority, NONE of us will know except for you. But even I question (because I don’t have all of the information other than what you’ve written here thus far) on whether or not everything was done to keep you breastfeeding.
Did you take any supplements or drugs to help facilitate milk production? Did you take these drugs while pumping inbetween feedings and using a SNS (supplemental nursing system) to again help stimulate the nipple while nursing so your baby could be nourished but at the breast?
How was your birth? Was it a c/s and were you seperated from your baby for long or was it a natural birth and your baby was able to nurse the moment it was born?
Believe you me I have had more than enough children to know that BF isn’t always possible. I too have had to (ok chose to in some cases) use formula. My BF experiences were NOT all rainbows and flowers. I’ve endured the broken bleeding nipples, the fevered chills of mastitis more times than I care to count, the numberous plugged ducts, the endless months of exclusively pumping because some of my babies were unable to nurse at the breast, etc etc etc. With one baby I listened to an old and ill informed doctor who told me that thrush would go away on it’s own in 3-4 months after birth. That was NOT the case and is certainly NOT true, yet I followed his trusted advice because he was my doctor since I was a child so he “MUST” know what he was talking about! I trusted him, because he must know more!
His ill informed advice nearly left me dead. Both of my nipples were cracked and bleeding and a double breast infection set in so deep by the time I got to the hospital I was on the verge of being septic. I spent a night in the hospital with IV antibiotics. I no longer could take the breast/nipple torture and literally gave upo BF at that point with my 4th baby. I was devestated since my 3rd baby was so easily BF for over a year I never imagined I’d have problems like that.
My oldest two I will admit I was not properly educated or informed. I thought I could just BF without a problem. That I didn’t need to be taught to do something so natural. Instead I struggled with a baby who was nipple confused and constantly refused the breast. I had a c/s with her and I could not control what the nurses gave her at the time (so I thought). I don’t know what they did but she never would BF for more than seconds at a time. I tried pumping but being a first time mom with no help and very emotionally unstable; after a month of agonized torture to myself and my baby I tearfully gave in to the easy canned formula I was sent home with.
With my 2nd baby; I didn’t know jaundice could cause a baby to be more lethargic an sleepy. But she was. She enjoyed sleeping and she rarely ate at the breast. I pumped for a week and could barely keep her awake for even bottle feedings. Plus with a 13mo old crawling all over us I again turned to the easy out of formula. I was less broken up about it, because it was easier to make the switch the second time around than the first because I already dealt with the failure of BF once before.
Baby #3 I got determined to BF. I joined LLL meetings and learned a hell of a lot more than I ever thought possible. With help and diligence (and a homebirth) I was personally successful and exclusively BF him for 13 mo.
I already told you about #4’s problems. #5’s were just as bad and the trauma from #4’s made me consider giving up at the beginning. Instead I learned about exclusively pumping. I EP’d for 8months for him. Then #6 came along and I was excited once more to try BF again. She had a great suck but horrible latch. The combination led us to discover her palet was too high. Many said to wait as she could grow out of it. But alas 3, 4, and 6 months into EP’ing for her she still clicked and still could not latch to my breast properly. I EP’d for about 7 mo with her.
#7 came along and I was realistic about my approach. But #7 came with is own problems. Well more like I did. My right breast continually was clogged or getting infections and baby refused to nurse on that side. I had to pump the right while BFing only on the left. I was pulling double duty with both BF and EPing! I was taking a bunch of supplements to keep thrush away and to help try and keep my breasts clear of plugs/clog/infections. They’d work untilI forgot them and then things would flare again. It wasn’t until he was about 9mo old that I no longer needed to pump my right breast and he’d eat from both side without me having to pump.
Formula does have it’s place. But I agree with the comic and comments because, BREAST should always come first. A breastfeeding bag with formula samples is NOT placing breastfeeding first! It simply is NOT! Why not a pump, lanolin, breastpads, heating pads, or numbers to lactation consultants? Because Nestle or Efamil doesn’t get $$$ from women who BF.
Yes I had to use/chose to use formula many times over with my children. But for me at those given times, it was right for us. I am still a lactivist who fully 100% supports the breastfeeding initiative. I am NOT ashamed for using formula at all! I am ashamed for not having the proper information at given times. Perhaps if I had had my first born adjusted by a chiropractor she would have been able to nurse! Perhaps if I was more determined with my 2nd I would have made it through those rough first months and pumped and still been able to BF without quitting after 1-2 weeks. The rest of my children I believe I did the best I could. I know I could have done better but I did what was right for me, and while part of it was formula feeding I will still push breastfeeding first over formula any ol’ time!
We are NOT a pro formula feeding group and Hathor is NOT a pro formula type of comic strip either. She knows and we all know that formula has its place and while your doctor and help may have been the best for you and “enough” and “pro-breastfeeding”. NONE of us will understand that and many of us will continue to be skeptical because that is just plainly NOT the norm for the rest of at least North America or formula companies.
Erica- ALL mothers have enough guilt, which we cheerfully heap upon ourselves for our perceived “failures”. What I see when I read your posts is that you really tried to breastfeed and couldn’t. And it obviously bothers you. No one should be allowed to judge you- everyone has their problems when it comes to raising children!
About a month after she was born, I was bemoaning the fact that my second born was born seven weeks early by c-section, rather than naturally, like her older sister. An older and wiser friend said to me, “Did you get a sticker on her birth certificate that said, ‘Born by natural birth?’ Of course not. Any birth that ends in a live baby is a good birth.” I have applied that advice many times since then. Any method of feeding that leads to a live, healthy baby is a good thing, at least for that baby. Does your baby know that you care about her? Of course. It is obvious you do. That is what really matters!
You are doing your best. We all are. Every mother’s best is going to be different. We need to support each other as much as we can- all of us moms are here in the trenches together! It’s a shame you couldn’t breastfeed. But I’ll bet you’re a great mom anyway!
ok, why oh why is it that every freaking time there is an issue with formula companies, moms who used formula pipe in to say that all of us against free formula hand outs given to breastfeeding moms as breast feeding support are being mean to them? if you had to use formula to keep your baby alive then why do you feel this is an attack on you? formula in and of it self is not evil, IT IS THE COMPANIES who push it on people, buy doctors and hospital wings, give hospital staff freebies, offer “support” in the way of two pairs of breastpads, a micro-tube of some nipple cream, a somewhat ugly plastic diaper bag and a huge can of formula. That is what is the issue here, not the moms who formula feed. there is two groups that formula feed… those who have to and those who never got enough support. why would anyone think that lactovists are against moms? against fed babies? what we are against is the companies that buy support and spread misinformation and the lack of education most health care workers get in regards to the importance of breastfeeding.
darn it. how can we vent, talk and plan action if we have to pussy foot around this topic all the darn time? no one here or as far as i have ever seen has ever thought that a formula feeding mom is the devil. EVER! the companies are, not the moms. so CHILL!
heather in maine
Well said, heather hawkes!
yep, here here. thinking the exact same thing myself!
[...] Mama-Is: Breastfeeding Support Kit Comic [...]
I have hypoplasia, which is insufficicant milk glands. I am one of the 2-5% of mother-baby couples who will never have a full supply, no matter what I do. But guess what? I have two kids who have never had a drop of formula. I take 32 pills a day between the herbs and domperidone to maximize my micro-supply, I pump after every single feeding, and I use donor human milk in an SNS to supplement my babies. Because I give a shit about my kids not eating crap I do this, and because I do this, I have a almost 4 year old that still nurses, and a 9 month old who is thriving on human milk. There is no excuse for formula feeding, except ignorance on the part of mothers and health care professionals. If I can do it, pretty much anyone can.
Kudos to all you breastfeeding mothers, I will be the first to say I did not enjoy breastfeeding, however I did it. I also think it is important to encourage mothers that you may love it, you may not, however you are doing the best thing for your baby.
I would like to have some of my doula cards handed out at the hospital…but No Ser Ri. Can’t do it, cause of liability…but they can support and hand out formula to breastfeeding mothers…Talk about backwards.
I am very sad with what some women have put about using formula.
I tried for 2 1/2 weeks with my daughter and due to my severly inverted nipples, I couldn’t breastfeed. It was a really hard decision but it was best for both of us. I guess I just wanted to open your eyes on how not all women can breastfeed, no matter how hard they try or how many lactation consultants they see. I’m going to try again with all of my future children but I just wanted everyone to have a sense of the other side.
IT IS SIMPLE HOW THESE COMICS COME INTO PLAY FOR ONE THEY ARE VERY TRUE. AND SECOND i BELIEVE IN THE USA THAT BREASTFEEDING IS REALLY CONSIDERED “TABOO” WHAT AGE ARE WE LIVING IN? THE 40S AND 50S OR THE NOW!!!
We received the bag too – sent to our home! – because we planned a homebirth & exclusive breastfeeding.
This is totally a “JUST IN CASE” bag — just in case all those things you hear about how you can’t do it, or shouldn’t do it (on any given med), or that it is too difficult, or in case you just need a break… here’s some vastly 2nd rate *stuff* to fill up your baby…
WHY NOT HOOK UP MOTHERS WITH NUMBERS/RESOURCES TO OBTAIN HUMAN MILK FOR HUMAN BABIES when they themselves cannot nurse/pump/breastfeed???
I ended up in the hospital when my son was just 2 weeks old and again when he was 3 months and we were in a very bad car accident. Being 100% adamant that he was only going to get what was best for him, I continued pumping every 2-3 hours to make sure he had enough. AND I made a list of donor moms and moms-who-knew-moms who would either (1) give my husband breastmilk should he need it or (2) nurse our baby for me if I could not while hospitalized or on meds.
There is no baby who deserves to be fed anything other than the human baby food they were designed to consume (at LEAST from birth-6months). No matter if his/her mother is sick/poor/dead/uninterested – we as a nation (with our BILLIONS of dollars going toward formula manufacturing & advertising & pushing) need to re-direct our efforts to making sure that all human babies have the option and resources to consume what is not only BEST – but what is vital to their OPTIMAL health, wellbeing, immediate and long-term *success* in life. Not my child or yours deserves any less.
This is hilarious! I cannot believe what the formula companies are doing these days.
I got samples in the mail. I drew pictures with a sharpie of breasts over the bottles and wrote “Breast is best” all over the packages. Then I wrote “return to sender” and sent them all back through the mail! Haha…
Some of these coments are so disturbing to me. Some of you really do not understatnd regardless of what you may think not all women can breast feed. I do want to breast feed my child but sadly I can’t. I am on anti-rejection drugs as I had a kidney transplant almost 2 years agao. These medications will not allow me to breast feed my child. Maybe some of you should be sympathetic to the mothers who can not share this gift with their chikdren. It does not mean we love our children less or that you are better mothers. We should always support each other.