But by six weeks more than half of parents have introduced formula. This is contrary to the cultural messages we receive about breastfeeding: that we should be doing it and we should feel bad if we don't. In fact, only a minority of mothers are doing as they're told, and, despite all the fuss about breastfeeding, there is not much research into this. And even fewer worry about the effects on the baby's health. There's doublethink going on here, a disconnection between what people are supposed to say and what they're actually doing.
And yet the message persists that breast is the only way forward. Christina Hardyment, author of a history of childcare, Dream Babies , says: "The history of breastfeeding fashion tends to be a middle-class thing.
Most people just do whatever they can do and what they can afford. The more women go out to work, the more acceptable it is to not breastfeed. But there is also a sense that there is a historical cycle at work here, she says. There was a big reaction in the s led by Truby King.
He said that babies needed their mother's milk and this sparked a terrific fashion for breastfeeding. It was about feeding by the clock, though, not on demand. People became pro-breastfeeding to the point that mothers began to be desperate.
Then in the s the Dr Spock "just relax" business came in and people started to say, 'If you can't breastfeed, then formula is just as good'. As a historian she argues that the scientific research proves "there is no doubt mother's milk is made for babies".
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Hospitals, she says, "are in the business of providing health care, not marketing pricey products to vulnerable patients. One such patient was Beth Schwartz, a Manhattan mother of four who had trouble breastfeeding when her first child was born.
Schwartz said her doctor didn't know enough about breast-feeding to instruct her, and she should have gone to a lactation consultant who could have helped her. The now year-old mother did exactly that for her second baby. Health experts from the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics have been encouraging nursing for years, saying benefits include milk rich in nutrients and antibodies that protect a baby.
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