Taking on the big wigs...

So in between trying to raise a happy, healthy and well adjusted toddler as well as trying to complete my teaching diploma, I have decided to take on the infant formula corporations.  This, I'm sure you can imagine, is no mean feat.  I have started my quest here on Facebook (of course) as well as having contacted the International Baby Food Action Network (who I am waiting to find out whether or not will support my campaign).  I am also trying to find a lawyer experienced in international courts who will be kind enough to help me.  It's all a waiting game (and if you knew me, you'd know how much I HATE waiting!). 

This is my plan...
1.  Try and gather as many supporters on Facebook as possible.
2.  Post as many links to as many studies as I can that prove infant formula is an extremely harmful substance.
3.  Liase with international bodies on the campaign to have infant formula corporations the world over display a health warning on their labels.
4.  Speak to a lawyer about a whole bunch of legal stuff.
5.  Start a petition to gather as many signatures as possible to present to whoever I need to present it to to make the change.
6.  Take the infant formula corporations to court and force them by way of VERY heavy fines to display health warning's on their labels.
7.  Change the world and save babies lives.

I would like to put down my thoughts on all 'the legal stuff' but don't want the formula companies to know what I'm up to just yet.  I mean, with only 101 likes on Facebook they can hardly take me seriously just yet but that is why it is imperative for me to gain as much support as necessary to bring them 'down'. 

Do I judge mothers who formula feed?  I judge mothers who choose not to breastfeed, without arming themselves with the information that is so readily available out there to show them how dangerous infant formula is.  I judge mothers who think that breastfeeding is 'creepy' and 'gross'.  I judge mothers who say their breasts are for their 'husbands' and not their babies.  Unfortunately, these mothers that I judge, are just people who have fallen into the formula trap as I like to call it.  Should I blame them for falling into the trap?  No, in all honesty I'm not sure I can blame them.  But I do think that in this information age, they should take advantage of all the information that's out there and use it and not trust well-meaning (though mis-informed) family members. 

Although I understand and accept that formula has saved *some* babies lives, it has probably killed many more babies.  In fact, I KNOW it has killed many more babies.  Babies that have grown up and died of obesity, diabetes, cancer, etc etc etc.  People just don't get how important infant nutrition is; they don't get how the way a baby is fed as a baby, reaches through into the rest of their lives.  Couple that with bad genes and you have a recipe for disaster (nutrition alters genes, see here {ok I know it's the Daily Fail but still..}).  Look at it like this, you're fed junk food (read formula) as a baby and you're quite big because of that, your chances are now higher for being obese as your metabolism slows down in adulthood, thus, your genes have changed so you now carry the 'obese gene'.  You procreate, you have a baby, you feed it junk food (read formula), your baby is big, except, instead of slimming out during childhood like you did and then gaining weight in adulthood finally becoming obese, your child grows.. and grows.. and grows.. and never slims out, because now, in addition to carrying the 'obese gene', it's been fed formula so it's genes have been altered to be 'morbidly obese genes'.  And so the vicious cycle continues.  Not *all* formula fed babies, become obese, I accept that.  But just because they aren't obese, does not mean that they don't carry the altered gene that is now the 'obese gene'.  Or, if they're really luck, they come from a really good gene pool and they will be generations of formula feeders who NEVER become obese (but develop diabetes, cancer, meningitis etc).  Who knows.  Genetics are a tricky thing.  But you can be sure that being fed formula as a baby, means a lifetime of health issues for yourself, your children, your grandchildren and so on.  I come from a line of formula feeders, but ever since I was a little girl, I knew I would breastfeed.  I didn't think as a 7 year old "I'm going to breastfeed", instead I was fascinated with it and put puppies to my flat chest (lol!) or dollies or whatever.  When I became pregnant with my son, THAT was when I said, I am going to try and breastfeed.  And so I have done.  And still going strong at 19 months. 

So, take a look at the page, spread the word, and above all, RESEARCH the dangers of infant formula before you have a baby.  Don't forget, if you formula feed because of whatever medication you were on when your child was a baby that meant you couldn't breastfeed, you could always relactate now that you're off the medication and express milk for your baby to drink from a cup :) (or if they are still really young, relactate and teach them to latch again).

An Article EVERY mum and mum to be should read!

Hello everyone, sorry for the lengthy silence.  I have a 15 month old so a lot of running around to do!  I recently came across this article that I think is fantastic!  Please please have a read before considering formula...

Johann Hari: There is a smart drug – it's called breast milk

Imagine if today, scientists discovered a drug that could save 13 per cent of all the babies who currently die. Now imagine that drug also made your baby cleverer – and dramatically slashed her chances of developing heart disease, diabetes, leukaemia, asthma or obesity as an adult. Oh: and imagine it was free.

The "drug" exists. It is called breast milk. Yet in the developed world, we often stigmatise women who give it to their babies as "creepy". In the developing world, we allow corporations to tug babies from their mother's nipple, and put them on to powders that bring more profit – and more death.

I come at this from a strange perspective. My mother breastfed me until I was nearly three; she only stopped the day I wrote her a note saying I expected to be breastfed that afternoon. Today, whenever I have a success, she clutches her breasts and exclaims: "It's thanks to these!" Whenever my bottle-fed brother and sister have a failing in life, she howls: "Think what you could have been if I'd given you the tit." (Whenever she gets a bit too self-congratulatory, I remind her she also smoked 40 cigarettes a day. "Ach," she says, "it's stressful having a little bastard suckin' at you all the time.")

It's the best thing you can do for your baby – without it I'd be even fatter and more disease-ridden. It's good for you too, significantly reducing a mother's risk of osteoporosis and cancer of the ovary. Yet my mum was made to feel like a flasher. She was glared at in public places, and asked to leave restaurants, parks and even buses. Unsurprisingly, Britain today has the worst record on breastfeeding in the developed world, after Belgium. Some 24 per cent of our babies never taste breast milk at all – and by six weeks, a majority have shifted entirely to formula.

Why? Why do we hobble our babies, and our country? Let's rule out some of the more glib explanations. The number of women who physically can't breastfeed with the right support is negligibly small: the World Health Organisation (WHO) puts it at 1 per cent. Nor is it because women prefer the "liberation" of the bottle. A Department of Health study found that 90 per cent of mothers who stopped feeding at six weeks said they wanted to carry on, while 40 per cent of those who stopped at six months felt the same.

The most primal reason belongs to an old, old story: women are conditioned to find their own bodies disgusting, except when they can be used to entice men. A get-your-tits-out-for-the-lads culture doesn't want you to get your tits out for your baby: they're for titillation, not nurture. This week, one of the Government's best ministers – Harriet Harman – has succeeded in peeling this back, by including the legal right to breastfeed your baby in public into the new Equalities Bill.

But the biggest reason most women give for reluctantly pushing their baby on to the bottle is their need to return to work. How do we change that? For clues, look at the country where breastfeeding rates are still 90 per cent at six months: Norway. They give mothers a year off with 80 per cent pay, and give state employees breastfeeding breaks when they do come back. Yes, this costs businesses some money up front – but it saves a fortune further down the line, because you have a cleverer workforce that pays more tax and puts less pressure on the health service. If British babies were breastfed at Norwegian rates for just three months, the NHS would save £50m annually in the treatment of one disease alone – gastroenteritis.

That leaves another dark explanation for the fall-off: the role of unchecked corporate power. There is no profit to be made from a mother's milk, so at the turn of the last century corporations tried to find a way to divert babies from nestling at their mother's breast to Nestlé-ing at the corporate teat. They invented "baby formula" and marketed it as the classier, cleaner alternative. Cow & Gate powder was sold with a crown on the tin, bragging the Windsor children used it. (Look how that turned out.)

Gradually, in the democratic world, the corporations were restrained from making the most blatantly bogus claims about breast milk – but they keep slipping the leash. In Britain, they are banned from marketing baby formula to those younger than six months old. But instead they market "follow-up formulas" for older kids with exactly the same logo, covered with claims that it is "closer than ever to breast milk".

This has produced a situation of startling public ignorance, where a third of mums think baby formula is "as good" or even "better" than breast milk. The poorest women know least and shift to formula first – adding another milky layer of inequality to our island. This dodgy marketing needs to be banned today.

But this breast-con swells to a 52DD scandal in the developing world. I recently visited Bangladesh, where mothers are routinely told to abandon their healthy breast milk and spend great swaths of their income on formula. I think of all the dead and dying babies I saw, and wonder how many could have been saved by a substance that was there, free, all along. WHO calculates that 1.3 million babies die every year because they are not breastfed. That's a World Trade Centre-full a day.

Nestlé are still the most notorious offenders, controlling a near-majority of the world market. In Botswana, Nestlé has distributed a pamphlet claiming if you give your baby its "acidified" formula, "diarrhoea and its side effects are counteracted". In reality, babies who use this rather than breast milk are more likely to contract diarrhoea – and die. Public health campaigns can hardly fight back: the corporation's annual marketing budget is bigger than the entire annual budget of the world's 28 poorest countries.

Nestlé says they consistently promote breastfeeding as the first, best option – but in 1999, a British Advertising Standards Authority studied the evidence and ruled they had to remove from their advertising the claim they sold their formula "ethically and responsibly". It is only tight, binding international regulation – here, and abroad – that will tame corporations from milking the poorest with misinformation. To join the campaign to make it happen, visit www.babymilkaction.org.

And yet, for all the evidence, it still seems like an implausible story. Can a powder mix of misogyny and unregulated corporate power really induce women against their will to harm their own children? It does, baby, every day. These are still shockingly powerful forces. Now suck on that – or fight back.

Breastfeeding is such a pain!

Yes, it can be horrendously painful.  More painful for some than others.  I was lucky enough to suffer a minimal amount of pain (and I have a very low pain threshold) but I think your ability to cope with the pain depends very much on how much you want to breastfeed.  I was determined to breastfeed and so didn't give up when it got sore.  What every new mom/breastfeeder has to remember is that the pain is only temporary.  If you suffer with pain throughout a feed then your baby's latch is wrong.  If you only suffer pain in the first few sucks of a feed, then congratulations!  Your baby is latched correctly. 

There are many ways to minimalise the pain in those first couple of weeks of breastfeeding, and here they are:

Paracetamol -  yes, we come back to the only painkiller you're allowed to take throughout pregnancy!  Pop a couple of paracetamol, even if it doesn't do it for you, and I guarantee the pain will be slightly lessened if not greatly reduced!
Lansinoh - otherwise known as lanolin cream.  Apply before and after every feed.  It speeds up the process of healing and can toughen your nipples up quicker.
Nipple-shields - I personally have never used these but have heard fantastic success stories of those who have.  Be warned, nipple shields are NOT to be used at every feed.  Nipple shields should ONLY be used when you can't take the pain anymore and you need to give your nipples time to heal before the next onslaught.  If you wear nipple shields at every feed, your nipples won't toughen up.
Breastmilk - That's right!  Breastmilk!  It's fantastic stuff.  If you express a little and spread it on your nipple and allow it to air dry it can speed up the healing process.  (other uses of breastmilk are for your baby's eye infection - when their eye gets all gammy from a blocked tear duct, breastmilk will clear it up in a couple of hours.  Breastmilk can also be used in the treatment of eczema.  Express some into a bowl and use it as a wash after your baby's bath!)

I hope these tips will help you through those first few painful days of breastfeeding.  Just remember that the more your baby feeds, the quicker your nipples will toughen up.

I'd just like to say that I am NOT against formula feeding.  I realise that there can be legitimate personal reasons why someone may choose not to breastfeed.  I can fully understand for example, a mom giving up because she can't take the pain.  All I would like to do is to encourage mom's to battle through the pain because it is the most rewarding journey a mother can go on with her child by breastfeeding.  You build such a special special bond with your baby through breastfeeding and none can rival it.  I have many friends who formula feed, sadly I don't know anyone who still breastfeeds their baby, and I would just like my formula feeding friends to know that I don't judge you at all.  I know you ladies and you're FANTASTIC moms.  If you read my blog please try and understand I'm not having a go at formula feeding mom's, what I'm trying to do is encourage new and veteran mom's to give the best to their baby. 

Again, I hope these tips help anyone planning/experiencing breastfeeding.  Please feel free to post any questions you may have. 

Happy Monday!!  xx