This post is about something which weighs very heavily in my heart. A topic that plagued the early months of first experience as a mother and I don’t think is talked enough about. It’s about bottle feeding and the physical, emotional and societal pressure that comes with it. You may be wondering, what does this have to do with the theme of this blog? If you’re a new parent, every single thing you do from now on will need to be prefaced with a thought concerning your baby’s welfare. Will that concern always align with your mission to be green? The short of it is, not always. I wanted do parenthood the “green” way from the beginning – natural pregnancy, birth and through to natural feeding, but my experience was everything but. This is one of many spheres of life which I am most imperfectly green.
Before you continue reading, let me make clear that I am not advocating for or against breast feeding, bottle feeding, formula or combo. This is purely a piece about my own experience, and some helpful words of support which were shared with me.
A summary of my birthing experience: After 32 hours of labor, I unfortunately was robbed of the opportunity of a natural birth and had an emergency c-section. I was gutted because I had envisioned going on an all natural route. Too bad, this is how the universe intended it, and it’s times like this I am grateful for modern medicine for saving both my life and my child. My husband and I are overwhelmed with love for our little boy.
Due to the emergency c-section, my milk did not come until about 2 weeks. I did everything I could to increase my milk supply: hired a double pump, ate oats and paak (an Indian treat packed full of nuts, dates and other ingredients to help moms), drank beer, took fenugreek pills and even worked with a lactation consultant.
Once my milk finally came in, it wasn’t enough. I was making about 15 oz (426 ml) a day at best, and this is by pumping every 2-3 hours. I was dogged about it. By this point, my son was used to the bottle and would not latch. He would scream bloody murder every time I brought him to my breast and we would both cry when we couldn’t make it happen. For men, as well as women exclusively breastfeed, you simply do not understand how saddening and painful this feeling is. It’s like, we had known how to communicate with each other for months while in the womb, and suddenly in the most tender of moments, we just could not understand and give each other what we needed. Mother nature didn’t care about supply/demand. At that point, I had to come to terms that he would be bottle fed.
For the first 3 months of his life, we combination fed him (alternating formula and breast milk from a bottle) and then dropped off to formula only once he started to increase his intake and I couldn’t keep up. I had been filled with guilt and it certainly contributed to my postpartum depression. It didn’t help that other mothers judged me, as well as NHS midwives and staff. One NHS clinic staff had the gall to tell me, “You should really be breastfeeding, you know its best. Besides, it’s free!”
Please don’t patronise me, you think I don’t know its “free?” Sure it’s free if you’re endowed with milk-producing breasts. However, if you give any value to my time and consider motherhood a true job, then saying it’s free implies I am no better than an indentured servant making no income. My time has a whopping value of 0. I should add that breastfeeding is not completely free, it also comes with its share of accessories and supplies – nipple shields and balms, breast pumps, storage bags, speciality supplements, and more. This same person also made a hard sell on breastfeeding for such stereo-typically girly reasons (she assumed again I chose formula over breast milk), such as “you will burn 500 extra calories a day, so you’ll lose weight faster and it reduces risk for breast and cervical cancer.” Well gee, do people think I don’t want those things?
As most mothers do, I blew past the unsolicited comments and went on my way. I looked online for resources on how to handle the formula feeding transition both physically and emotionally. I came across this tweet and shared on Facebook. It made me chuckle and gave me a sense of comfort. To my great surprise, I was attacked almost instantly.
I thought I was safe among friends, but it was the acquaintances I knew less that had such strong opinions. I was accused of spreading misinformation, not caring about my child’s health, being no better than Trump with my fake news and that it was irresponsible and it wasn’t even my content! Below is a snippet of a very long exchange, which I should not have participated in. He will not be named, but it’s just to prove I can’t make this up!
People missed the point entirely; she is not saying that breastfeeding doesn’t matter in its entirety. She is saying that in long term outcome of food preferences, it will not matter.
Why do people have such intense opinions over decisions that do not apply to them? Or more importantly, need to make those opinions known when it does not affect their lives directly in any form? The female body is politicised enough, but it just gets worse with motherhood. This person, along with several others have no clue how much they hurt me over something they probably will never think about again.
In my journey, breastfeeding wasn’t easy, but neither was bottle feeding. It’s complicated, there are many types of formulas and a lot of supplies you need to make it happen. Regardless of reason, formula feeding is perceived as an inferior path, as a lack of dedication to one’s baby. It is not the “easy way out” or indicative that you gave up. In fact, it demonstrates the latter, it’s that you’re trying to keep your baby healthy and happy. Formula feeding is also absurdly expensive. The average box is between £8-14, and if you blow through a box a week, that at least £730 a year and that is not including equipment such as bottles, teats, prep machines, sterlisers, pre-made formula for on-the-go and other supplies). It creates so much trash, the environmentalist in me cringes every time. Also, it is a royal pain the a$& to travel anywhere with a baby on formula; doesn’t matter if its short distances or far, you always have to make sure you’ve packed all the supplies and right amounts for the duration of your journey. I would love to just be the walking food source! If formula is a part of your bottle feeding experience, it’s not like you’re choosing to “support big corporate” (yes, someone has said that to me too). Each family has to make difficult choices, and this is not one that is easily made or swayed by branding, misinformation, corporate interests or popular mommy trends. I don’t have empirical data to substantiate this claim but from my informal conversations with other parent groups, it seems more often than not, the choice to formula feed part or full time is a matter of need, rather than an either/or choice over breast-milk.
I am a mother to a healthy growing boy and finally no longer feel ashamed. However, it took me a very long time to get here. I wanted to share with you some of the wonderful things my family and friends have said to help me get through this time. I hope that it will help you too:
- You may not be feeding your baby in the most eco-friendly way, but you tried your hardest, and you are more than making up by living greener in other ways – eco-friendly nappies, purchasing gently used/recycled/plastic free toys, and more. You will always find new opportunities to be greener with your child, just wait until weaning!
- Your son is not going to grow up saying to you, “what the hell, you didn’t breastfeed me!? You’re a terrible mother.” Believe me, you’re bound to do something else to mess him up and make him angry at you. Breast feeding is not going to be that. :-p
- Your son will still get sick. This is the natural order of life. We are built with different immunities. This isn’t some magical sauce that will prevent common illnesses and disease in its entirety.
- Formula or breastfeeding, your child will still likely suffer common problems with feeding; fussiness, colic, constipation, wind and more.
- If you’re bottle feeding, it’s likely the activity then is shared between mom, dad and other family members. This will help your child associate feeding as a non-gender specific activity. This is important in a world where we are still fighting for gender equality at home and in the work place.
- If you’re worried about bonding, there is a lot more you’ll be doing than just feeding to accomplish that. Cuddles, skin to skin, talking, contact, time and love are the things that your little one needs.
As Assistant Professor Cynthia Colen stated in a study, “I’m not saying breast-feeding is not beneficial, especially for boosting nutrition and immunity in newborns…But if we really want to improve maternal and child health in this country, let’s also focus on things that can really do that in the long term – like subsidised day care, better maternity leave policies and more employment opportunities for low-income mothers that pay a living wage, for example.”
So here I am 7 months later, I no longer have the guilt but I still think a lot about this. After all, nature designed our bodies to do it and breastfeeding is truly the least wasteful method of caring for your baby from an environmental perspective. No plastic bottles, no silicone teats, no formula powder containers and scoops. But sometimes nature doesn’t work, and never was a time like now that I am grateful for modern medicine and availability of formula. It’s what enabled my baby and I to survive and live this great life. This is yet another example where I am imperfectly green. I absolutely hate that I have to constantly buy formula, which comes in only partly-recyclable packaging, and I have lots of plastic supplies to go with it. But my commitment to living greener is that I will do everything I can to recycle and reuse to extend the life of these items, and advocate to the companies who sell formula to better design their packaging to minimise waste.
If you’re a mother who has struggled to make and live with this choice or “choice,” here are some helpful resources.
Resources: Facebook Bottle Feeders’ Support Group; Fearless Formula Feeder , Buy Guilt-Free Bottle-Feeding
Books: Bottled Up How the Way We Feed Babies Has Come to Define Motherhood, and Why It Shouldn’t