This week a Lancet paper caught my attention and reminded me how lucky I am to have such minor parenting dilemmas. The study looked at outcomes for HIV positive breastfeeding mothers and their babies in Malawi. The mothers were advised to exclusively breastfeed for six months and then wean. About five percent of the babies contracted HIV between 2 and 48 weeks. What an awful situation, to have to risk HIV transmission because your baby so badly needs the benefits that breastfeeding brings. It’s a stark reminder of how lucky we are in the west to have a safe and healthy alternative to breast milk.
My baby boy is seven and a half months old now. He was exclusively breastfed until he was 24 weeks and he’s never had formula. My current dilemma is what to do about milk when he goes to nursery in six weeks. We never managed to convince him to take a bottle, and I’ve never managed to convince my boobs to produce milk for a breast pump, so the obvious answer seems to be to give him formula from a cup while he’s at nursery. Really this should be fine as he’ll only be at nursery for a few short days a week. The thought of it makes me want to cry though, I can’t bear the idea of someone giving my son a substitute milk. What is it about introducing a tiny bit of formula that has such an effect on me? I honestly don’t believe a few formula feeds a week will be bad for his health, and I don’t think it will interfere with breastfeeding the rest of the time. I’m enjoying watching him learn to eat lots of interesting foods, and I’m happily encouraging him to drink water from a cup.
So why can’t I bring myself to give my baby a cup of formula? I don’t think it’s because the pro-breastfeeding / anti-formula rhetoric has got to me: I understand the benefits of breastfeeding but I also realise that it only makes a subtle difference in the west – I can’t tell which of my friends were breastfed and which were bottle fed. I don’t think of myself as an evangelical breastfeeder: I wanted to breastfeed and I’m glad it worked out, but if I’d encountered serious difficulties I wouldn’t have persevered no matter what. I also don’t breastfeed as part of a lifestyle: I do it because I believe it’s best for me and my son, it’s not part of my identity as a baby-wearing, co-sleeping, earth mother.
I think I’m just not ready to be away from my baby, and while I can see the benefits of him spending time with other children and doing fun new activities, someone else giving him milk is a step too far. Milk is what I produce for him, it’s not about food, it’s about his mother holding him, and comforting him, and loving him, and always, always, being there for him. I hate the suggestion that breastfeeding is the best way to bond with your child – as though fathers and bottle-feeding mothers don’t find other ways to bond – but I do feel that breastfeeding brings an incredible closeness. Now I have six weeks to either get my head round giving him a cup of formula, or find an alternative I can live with…
Evidence-based rants 