Breastfeeding Nazi: A thought for the day
Posted: May 30, 2007 at 8:09 pm by pannI was once called a Breastfeeding Nazi.
Jesus was breastfed, but then again so was Hitler. If they hadn’t been, they’d have probably died as infants.
Scary when my mind wanders like this.
Posted in So Random! | 
May 31st, 2007 at 9:15 am
I hate the breastfeeding nazi thing. I don’t mind when people say things like “pushy bitch LLL wackos.” It isn’t that I mind that some people will find any form of lactivism rude, though I do think that is kind of silly. Certainly some lactavists are rude. Most I have come in contact with aren’t. That isn’t my issue though. I find it horrible to like “pushy/rude/pissed me off” to “slaughtered millions of people.” When did “nazi” get downgraded from “member of genocidal regime/party” to “rude”?
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Rude and tells you what to do without any care for what you want to do… I guess that is how people think of fascists. It’s probably not accurate, either, any more than Nazi = rude and tells you what to do.
I think it sucks that breastfeeding support people have to walk on eggshells around the central issue that they want to help with. If you don’t give the info that someone needed then that could mean they fail at breastfeeding, but if you give too much info that could overwhelm them. If you tell them a watered down version of the truth it could be problematic, but if you word it too strongly, then you make them think that it’s gotta be 100% breastmilk or the kid is gonna croak. And of course, that is just not so!
June 4th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
What makes me flinch the most is still the mother of twins who wasn’t nuring because her doctor told her that breastmilk wasn’t good for preemies. I mean, what the fuck?!
June 12th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Some pediatricians feel that breastfeeding is too tiring for premies (and some premies indeed are not capable of bf at first) and some pediatricians insist on a high calorie formula for premies rather than give breastmilk of unknown richness or quality.
I don’t claim to know enough about the science behind premies and how their feeding needs differ, but some studies (no refs, sorry) I’ve heard of seem to suggest that the milk that a mom produces for her babe is specific to that babe, be it a premie or a full term baby.
If I had a premie, I’d want to do what they call kangaroo care, where you spend a lot of time holding the baby close to the breast to keep it warm, even if the baby cannot nurse yet.
If I had a premie, I’d fight really hard for breastmilk over formula. There are a lot of studies showing that breastmilk is much more easy to digest than formula, and that it contains special protections against infection.
But nobody can blame a mother who follows her doctor’s advice about feeding her baby: when we are so vulnerable as to have brand new infants, especially premies, we need to trust someone! Doctors are often swayed by the marketing materials, er, I mean information, that the formula reps bring them. The formula companies also spend big bucks for research that is supposed to show how their particular brew is better than another brew, or closer to mother’s milk, or causes better weight gain, or whatever.