health

World must tighten laws on breast-milk substitutes: U.N. report

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I agree that breastfeeding is great and a good option but not everyone can or should. I wish that there was a balanced way to look at all the information and let women decide for themselves. Let's educate women on how to create a healthy breastmilk supply full of nutrients and stop berating those women who cannot produce of choose not to do to their own specific circumstances. Breastfeeding is hard work and no one should be made to feel that they are failing their children when it is the best option for the mother and child as a whole.

Also, JT, you may get more traffic on this article if you use one of the other 2 pictures...some workplaces aren't really a fan of a boob sticking out even if it is in such an innocent matter as this. I wish this wasn't the case but some people will be hesitant to read due to the photo.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

right view, indeed.

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For those are down voting me...what's the reason? I have breastfed 2 children, suffered cracked, torn, bleeding nipples while being woken every 1.5 hours for weeks on end to nurse my daughters. I did it out of love and determination. However, looking back on it, I think I would have liked someone to tell me that it's ok to give some formula and get a 3.5 hour stretch of sleep. It's ok to give formula if your nipples are literally being shredded and need a few hours of relief. Yes, breastfeeding is good, but telling companies that they have to downplay their product when it can clearly help others is ridiculous. Also, free samples became an amazing benefit when I was so ill, that I had to be hospitalized and I didn't have enough breast milk frozen.

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looking back on it, I think I would have liked someone to tell me that it's ok to give some formula

I sympathise with you, sakurala; I had a similar experience with my daughter - bleeding nipples, baby not getting enough, waking and crying again soon after a feed. But I was told, not that it's OK to give some formula to get you through a bad patch, but that I should switch to formula and give up with the breastfeeding altogether. And she became a formula-reared baby.

What the article is talking about, though, isn't the option of having formula to fall back on; it's about incorrect and biased information through advertising and unsubstantiated health claims that try (and too often succeed) to convince mothers that formula is the better alternative in all cases. There is more money to be made from marketing formula than there is from encouraging breast-feeding.

Formula can be literally a life-saver, but it's a substitute. It shouldn't be the first choice except in exceptional circumstances (the mother is HIV-positive, is taking certain medications/drugs, etc.), and it should not be aggressively marketed as a preferable option to mothers who are perfectly capable of breastfeeding.

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