is breast best?

[Guest guest]

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Please read the Fall issue of Wise Traditions--articles soon to be on the

website. Breast feeding is NOT always best. It depends on the diet of the

mother. The diets of our breastfeeding mothers are often so appalling these

days that we are seeing babies have their baby teeth come in entirely

rotten! This is such a problem that it is even mentioned in La Leche League

literature. Sally

*****

I will read the article when it comes out on the web.

But surely you are not suggesting that canned infant formula is healthier

than breastfeeding? The mother's diet would have to be- well, one of

absolute famine. I can see making the claim that for a mother on a total SAD

diet or worse a lowfat SAD diet, especially a mother who was smoking etc,

that the infant formula in " Nourishing Traditions " is healthier than

breastfeeding. BUT, the mother who is unwilling to switch butter for

margarine and take cod liver oil capsules is NOT going to be willing to go

through the time consuming process of making up homemade formula! Nor is the

mother who is too poor to obtain these things going to be able to afford the

ingredients to make formula. Far better for the WIC office to offer butter

and cod liver oil to nursing mothers than a case of similac.

And breastfeeding is not just about teeth! Many bottle fed babies have bad

teeth and they will never have optimum teeth. The antibodies present in

breastmilk, and the fact that it is a living food make it far superior to

canned formula. You can't add your chicken pox immunity and the antibodies

you produced to that awful flu that's going around to formula. Ear

infections, gastric complaints, brain development, obesity, attachment- the

overall physical and *emotional* health of the infant are at stake. You may

never have propped a bottle or left your children alone with a pacifier, but

many (I dare say MOST) mothers who aren't nursing have. Breastfeeding

promotes bonding. And mothers who bond with their babies want what's best

for them. If these mothers knew that what they were eating was making an

impact on their children's teeth- well- I think we'd see fewer bad teeth.

The information needs to be OUT there. And it shouldn't be anti-breast or

pro-formula- it should be- " this is what makes breastfeeding BETTER. "

There is a MUCH better chance of improving mother's nutrition *for the baby*

than getting her to invest the time to make homemade formula. Starting with

pre-natal nutrition and moving forward from there. The way to help these

poor rotten mouthed babies is to make the link between maternal nutrition

and the state of their babies teeth *crystal clear* Many women are still

being told that they can eat whatever junk they want while pregnant, to

limit their weight gain, limit their salt intake, take a synthetic vitamin

and you'll be just fine. Even women who make the effort to become

knowledgable about nutrition are unaware of this link and are being led

astray. Read Diane Hopkins testimonial about her conversion from veganism to

the Price diet- here is a woman who studied nutrition and was willing to go

against society's norms to find good helath- only to find deterioration of

her (breastfed) children's teeth.

http://www.ldfr.com/articles/veganism.shtml

So much BAD information is out there. Other than through gov. offices like

WIC and organizations like the AAP, La Leche League would be THE place to

start getting this information out there. Organizations of midwives and OBs

who disseminate prenatal nutrition are also important.

Just because we are bucking the diet dictocrats doesn't mean they're wrong

about EVERYTHING. It's taken them 40 years to come to the realization that

breast is best- we need to change the system to make breastfeeding *better*

by adding the nutrients that are lacking to the mother's diet. Support

breastfeeding and you have a chance of getting LLL to back you and to start

including some of the information you have in their literature. And then you

have LLL pushing FOR YOU to bring these things to the attention of the AAP,

Ob's etc. Not supporting breastfeeding makes it a lot harder to get the

information out the MOTHERS, where it needs to be.

Love in Christ,

Alison

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