Infant Feeding - Massive Straw Men with Ambivalence & Gaslights

yes, do read the Politics of Breastfeeding
I think the issue with donor milk replacing formula is one of scale
It would be feasible to set up systems to allow altruistic donating of bm for babies in special care etc or with mothers temporarily unable to feed (eg I worried loads before DS1 that I'd have an EMCS and be unable to feed him)
but to replace formula would require an industry scale operation with all the possibility for exploitation PPs have mentioned, and while it might benefit the babies, it wouldn't benefit the mothers
the casual wet nursing will only work in small scale societies where bf is the norm, so an unfed infant will never be far from a lactating woman who feels some kinship/duty to the baby or it's mother
I think the simplest solution is to properly value and support breastfeeding (which means valuing women and babies more than profit)- so far we have failed dismally at this

Oooh I didn't know she was still writing.

Agree Politics of Breastfeeding is a fantastic read.

I have to admit I don't feel quite right about the alternative to breastfeeding being donor milk. It is quite right that there are milk banks around for premature or otherwise vulnerable babies and mothers who want to donate. But I'm not sure I like the idea of milk banks being the main source/demand for non-breastfed babies. It just feels like there would be exploitation going on. I definitely see the problem with profit being such a huge part of the formula industry but I don't see donor milk as being the solution, probably more restriction on formula companies - and I very much dislike the way this is often framed as criticism of formula feeding mothers, I feel there ought to be scope to discuss how formula companies manipulate the market and the narrative around breastfeeding without it being taken as a personal insult.

What I did find interesting in The Politics of Breastfeeding was the description of societies where breastfeeding is still so normal that wet nursing is done almost casually and considered such a normal part of life that it doesn't even really have a name - if a baby needs to feed and its mother is not present then another woman will breastfeed it, including post-menopausal women! I think I would actually feel much more comfortable with this. Though my DS2 had quite a lot of formula, in the end.

I agree with you, OP, about women's feelings not being taken into account. It's not unusual for mothers to feel grief over the end of a breastfeeding relationship, and it's not helpful to have those feelings dismissed. And it's terrible to see women suffering guilt through a feeling of failure when they haven't failed at all, they have actually been failed by an inadequate system and subject to commercial interests to undermine breastfeeding. I second the recommendation of The Politics of Breastfeeding. It's excellently written and a real eye-opener.

I too have been a milk donor. I would want donor milk available if my baby was poorly, so it seemed only fair that I should donate if possible. Donors are thoroughly screened, and because your baby has to be under 6 months when you start donating there is up-to-date health information about you.

As it happened, my baby was very poorly at 10 months. She didn't need donor milk, but the fact I was donating meant that everything I expressed while she was unconscious in PICU could go to the milk bank and wasn't wasted. It also meant every time a doctor expressed (no pun intended!) doubts about her breastfeeding once she woke up they were swiftly rebutted by a nurse saying 'she's a milk donor' (Every single doctor did this - more undermining!)
Absolutely agree that women shouldn't be paid or expected to donate. It is a lot of extra work.

I donated with my second child. It was purely altruistic - dd1 was seriously ill as a newborn and although in the end we didn't need a donor for her it was touch and go and I hated the though of babies even sicker than she was not having access to milk. I found the screening and collection process easy enough, and the milk bank were lovely, but the actual pumping was hideous. I was terrible at it; never collected much more than 30ml at a time. It pisses me off to high heaven that pumping is billed as the easy option so you can go back to work or let your partner feed the baby. It bloody isn't for everybody. I found it tiresome and degrading and lonely, and it's only through sheer stubbornness that I managed to donate a litre in all.

Or 70 actually, my maths went a bit funny.

If I couldn't breastfeed I would have rather fed DS donated human milk than formula. I didn't manage to donate last time (lots of pain killers after the birth) but I'll try to if I have another baby.

Tbh if in a random far fetched emergency like me popping to the shop and breaking a limb someone had breastfed my DS I'd have just felt grateful. Similarly I'd do it for someone else.

When my Nonna's were little girls/young women there were still a few wet nurses about. Other women would leave their babies with them and go work in the fields/factory etc. so not rich women at all.
Interesting how much things change in 50 odd years

I was devastated that I couldn’t feed DS. He was really bashed about during delivery ending in an EMCS and a week in the NICU, but nobody diagnosed either of his tongue ties. I had some great help, and some not so great, including the NICU nurse who sighed and literally shoved him onto my boob when I asked for help. I expressed for him to have in a bottle and it was a bloody nightmare. I wish firstly that someone had caught the TTS. Secondly, I wish someone had said to me that it was alright. That they knew I’d made a huge effort and sometimes breastfeeding just doesn’t work out. That my baby would thrive on formula, and that it made my life a million times easier when he was diagnosed as lactose intolerant and I just swapped his formula instead of having to go dairy free myself. I do think the language used is incredibly emotive but I don’t think you make a decision about feeding with your head - it’s a heart decision.

I donated breast milk with DD1, I was exclusively expressing and bottle feeding, and had too much. I expressed for 11 months. When I tried to do the same with DD2 (I found breastfeeding tough and wanted to use bottles), my supply dried up quickly.

My sister couldn’t express at all, and I don’t know anyone else who found it as easy as I did with DD1.

The idea that all this needs is resources and “will” is ludicrous - many women can’t help even if they wanted to.

Formula is not poison, and if women weren’t under so much pressure to be “perfect” mothers and successfully breast feed or feel like a failure (like I did) then a lot of new mums would be a whole lot happier!

I can't see there being a huge uptake on that 'chestfeeding' kit (apart from in a certain circle of course.....).

the women would have had to move into the other family's home to be available to the infant 24/7.

Or the baby was sent to live with the wet nurse. This was literally called baby farming.

Wet nurses in ye olden times were frequently forced to abandon their newborns in order to feed the rich family's child. Very unlikely they would have been able to feed both children, the women would have had to move into the other family's home to be available to the infant 24/7.

“A student from London, England, is being praised for her kit that would make men be able to "chestfeed" children in order to overcome the gender inequality of women-only breastfeeding.”

www.theblaze.com/news/this-kit-will-solve-gender-inequality-in-breastfeeding-by-making-men-lactate-heres-how

Magic, you've reminded me that I tried to donate a large stash of frozen milk I had with DS1 and the milk bank rejected it because I hadn't collected it in a way that could be guaranteed to be safe, in the way Trina describes. My home freezer wasn't high enough spec, bottles might not have been properly sterile etc. It was fine for my healthy baby but might not have been for the preemies and very sick babies who they needed to feed.

Pumping is also so much work and time as well, I don't think it should ever be expected of women to donate or rewarded financially.

I have also read that historically poorer women would act as wet nurses for richer women, and their own babies would be fed by other means, or only partially with breast milk, thus being far worse off in terms of nutrition and health. Very sad, I thank my lucky stars that we have formula now. Also agree with the above on the amount of labour involved in expressing. I managed 2 months and it was hellish.

Thinking about it a moment longer, I realise it's very likely that altruistic wet nursing also took place, so I suppose that post was a little hasty

Quite common still I'm other parts of the world. My Kuwaiti mate refers to his friend as 'cousin' not because they are cousins, but because they were breastfed by the same woman at some point. It's often practiced in extended families when a mother is unwell, deceased or simply needs a break.

Stinkytoe

Yes, pumping milk is nothing like donating blood in that it represents a huge amount of labour. I pumped for a period of 6 months for my first child and it was sooo much work I said there was no way I was doing that again for my second child, let alone someone else's child.

I don't think there should be any pressure on women to perform this labour for the sake of altruism when we are lucky enough to have an alternative that nourishes babies perfectly well. Human milk should not certainly be a right, because the other side of that coin is that a certain number of women must be compelled to provide milk. And paying women for their milk should be absolutely out of the question, from a feminist perspective.

I assume a large number of milk donors are women who are/were pumping anyway for their own child, though, and have an oversupply or their child weaned earlier than planned and they don't want to waste their stored milk? In those cases I tentatively don't see an issue with it...

Wet nursing is interesting. I’m sure a lot of altruistic wet nursing went on, but for a poor woman with a baby or whose own baby had died, it was certainly a way of earning money-and more pleasant than a lot of other ways.

I have been a milk donner.
They were very thorough.
A lead from the local milk bank came to my home explained the procedures, provided sterilized bottles, a freezer thermometer and took blood for testing. Same as in pregnancy to be screened at virology and microbiology.

I had to fill in the temperature chart daily and maintained an empty drawer/shelf in the freezer. It was collected when I called the service by a volunteer biker.

The milk is screened before use as well.

If the temperature in my home freezer were not correct the milk would be discarded.

I think the donor milk thing is fraught with ethical and safety issues that keeping milk banks mainly for babies who are early or ill makes sense to me. I wouldn't want women to be paid for donated milk, and I also wouldn't want women to think of access to a milk bank as an right as opposed to a medical need offered in the context of sickness or SCBU etc.

It's just not a practical or accessible option for most, so it's not worth even listing it as an alternative to breastfeeding and formula.

The only way putting money into milk banks would really work is by paying women for their milk. You will then end up with worse off women providing the milk and better off women buying it. I don't see how else this would work in practise.
Personally I couldn't breastfeed. I would not have wanted to use another's woman's milk unless I had no alternative. Of course there are many settings around the world where there really isn't a safe alternative (what access to clean water is poor)... I'm not too sure how it works in those settings? I'm assuming wet nurses within communities. Historically also many of the babies where they could not breastfeed would have died due to being fed inappropriate foods. Interesting topic though!

I’ve not much knowledge on the subject. How is the milk checked though? I’d be put off incase it was contaminated by something the woman had taken or was infected by.

Or could that never happen?