Researchiness: breastfeeding department

The Times recently reported that: "Studies have shown that children who are fed formula have increased risks of ear and respiratory infections, obesity, diabetes and even cancer."

Only, for the most part, they don't. As STATS explains, while there is "robust evidence" that breastfeeding decreases the risks of ear infections and diarrhea, the evidence concerning the impact of breastfeeding on respiratory infections, diabetes, and cancer is unclear at best.

STATS continues:

But not all women can breast-feed or can breast-feed all the time.

Nevertheless, the government has decided that women should do so as a matter of public health policy, and the way to get them to do that, it would seem, is to scare them into nursing by over-stating the risks and playing up limited research on the risks of formula. Unfortunately too, the Times has continued to give uncritical support to this campaign by using a journalistic formula of its own.

The point that not all women can breastfeed cannot be emphasized strongly enough. Some women are physically unable to do so -- their breasts do not produce enough milk, and their babies risk starvation if the mother relies on her breast milk alone. The relentless guilt-tripping "breast is best" propaganda can be quite harmful in cases like these.

And of course, many working women aren't able to breastfeed, because many employers refuse to provide the break time and facilities they need to pump their breast milk. Indeed, here's more fodder for the inequality files:

. . . [A] two-class system is emerging for working mothers. For those with autonomy in their jobs — generally, well-paid professionals — breast-feeding, and the pumping it requires, is a matter of choice. It is usually an inconvenience, and it may be an embarrassing comedy of manners, involving leaky bottles tucked into briefcases and brown paper bags in the office refrigerator. But for lower-income mothers — including many who work in restaurants, factories, call centers and the military — pumping at work is close to impossible, causing many women to decline to breast-feed at all, and others to quit after a short time.
(H/T Zuzu of Feministe)

But realities like this haven't stopped Bush's Department of Health and Human Services from churning out alarmist bullshit attempting to scare women into nursing, such as this lovely example:

A two-year national breast-feeding awareness campaign that culminated this spring ran television announcements showing a pregnant woman clutching her belly as she was thrown off a mechanical bull during ladies’ night at a bar — and compared the behavior to failing to breast-feed.

“You wouldn’t take risks before your baby’s born,” the advertisement says. “Why start after?”

This is the nanny state, literally. Hmmm . . . why is that I've never heard those conservatives and libertarians who are so quick to accuse liberals of "paternalism" utter a word about this?

I see the pro-breastfeeding hysteria as part and parcel of renewed patriarchal attempts to re-assert control over women's bodies. The right-to-lifers are the main proponents of this particular flavor of patriarchal ideology, but their influence has spread, giving impetus to all manner of campaigns to recolonize the female body -- from attempts to make it harder for women to get abortions and birth control pills, to efforts to shame them into breastfeeding, to the increasingly popular trend of the hyper-judgmental policing of pregnant women's bodies, and the ever-growing list of foods, drinks, activities, and substances that pregnant women are being told they must entirely abstain from.

It's getting ridiculous. My sister-in-law, who is due to give birth next month, recently informed me that "experts" say pregnant women shouldn't take baths, because baths can be bad for the baby. I mean - baths, fer chrissakes! Wtf?

One final point: it's crappy and depressing but (at this point, anyway) unsurprising when a government agency like DHHS, which controlled by a president who's an antifeminist wingnut, devotes itself to producing antifeminist wingnut propaganda -- such as the "you must breastfeed or else" crock. It's another matter entirely, however, when a reporter -- and a New York Times reporter, at that! -- dutifully parrots the propaganda. Do the job you're paid for, dammit! Take the time to check out some independent sources and know a little about the subject you're writing about. Sheesh!

It's probably sheer hacktackularness that caused the reporter to screw up in this case, but with the Times, you can never be sure. For quite some time now, the Times has, more often than not, been taking an antifeminist stance in its news stories. You can see this, for example, in the highly favorable treatment the Times gives to studies that reaffirm traditional sex roles (and the near-blackout of the ones that don't). The TImes also displays a notable anti-choice bias in its coverage of abortion and has the distressing habit of running dumb, sexist stories about the nonexistent "trend" of women dropping out of the workforce.

Whenever you read a New York Times story about any subject related to gender or feminism, your bullshit detector should be on red alert. I'm just sayin'.

Source: By The G Spot