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I have recently joined The Scientific Parent as an Editor at Large. Today I'm getting a little personal and talking about why I chose to formula feed my preemie. I also put my public health hat on and discuss why I am concerned that we haven't learned how to promote breastfeeding without stigmatizing formula feeding. There is a great discussion happening in the comment section of the article "What Are We Telling Mothers When We Say “Breast is Best"? Please join us!
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If any of you frequent parenting blogs, Facebook groups, or classes, you no doubt saw a link to Similac’s new video “The Mother’Hood”. Trust me- please watch…
I laughed (and cried) watching this video, because it is right on. My favorite line: “Drug-free pool birth, dolphin assisted”.
In my 51 weeks of parenting so far (yes, my little guy will be 1 year old next week!), I have found the following issues to be HOT and often full of judgment in my circle of parenting groups:
Feeding- the early months (breastfeeding vs. formula feeding- or both!)
Feeding- the later months (purees vs. baby led weaning; organic food vs. regular food; how and when you introduced solid food)
Stay at home vs. parents who work outside the home (and many parents, fall into both camps depending on the day!)
Car seats (how long you stay rear-facing; whether you use them on planes)
Cloth vs. disposable diapers (and other decisions which impact the environment)
Sleep practices (cribs vs. co-sleeping, crib bumpers, sleep training)
The type of childcare you select (day care center, in-home daycare, nanny, au pair)
The list could go on and on….and these are just the hot topics I’ve found in the infant world!
The Mother’Hood Message: Why Does It Help?
The reality is that new parents can often feel very isolated and judged. This has many public health implications, especially for women at risk for postpartum depression. So for that reason, I like the primary message of the campaign which is that we should focus on the things that unite us, not divide us. At the end of the video, we read:
“No matter what our beliefs, we are parents first”.
And although the “cliques” (e.g., the bottle feeding group, the breast feeding group) are meant to show our separations…I also think it can mean that you will find others to spend time with who have a similar approach to parenthood that is compatible with yours. And that is reassuring.
This video is part of a larger campaign from Similac called “The Sisterhood of Motherhood”. The tag line for the campaign is, “Where moms get encouragement, not judgment”.
Can We Trust This Message From a Formula Company?
When I watched the video, I thought to myself- “makes sense this comes from Similac, their customers know a thing or two about being judged”. As I have previously written, it concerns me that public health has not found an effective way to promote breastfeeding without stigmatizing formula feeding.
So I was a little surprised to see (in social media and news article comments) that many viewers liked the video until they realized it came from Similac. Some expressed feelings that the message was less genuine since Similac stands to benefit financially when there is less public stigma about formula-feeding. One commenter wrote, “I was all for this, until I found out that it was created by Similac”.
Tell Me What You Think:
Does the fact that the video comes from a formula company make the message less meaningful or genuine?
Why or why not?
And Can We Trust A Message That Forgot About Dads?
I was really excited to see Dads in the video! They were baby wearing and caring for their kids- it was great. They were even included in the tag line “No matter what our beliefs, we are parents first”…but in the next screenshot, we find out they were excluded from the campaign overall: “The Sisterhood of Motherhood”.
Many online commenters focused on this exclusion. Several asked, “Why not call it “The Parent’Hood”.
In my opinion, this is an unfortunate miss in an otherwise funny, relevant, and moving video. Why include Dads in the video just to exclude them at the end? What about families that have two fathers or a father who serves as the primary caregiver?
Tell Me What You Think:
Was the video and overall message ruined for you because fathers were excluded?
Why do you think that the video and campaign developers made that decision?
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My son taking a bottle of formula in the NICU (February 2014)
When my baby boy arrived, he weighed 4 pounds, 13 ounces. He entered the world 8 weeks early and spent 29 days in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). When your baby is in the NICU, there is enormous pressure to breastfeed. The nurses rolled a hospital grade pump to my bed side just hours after delivery and minutes after my first visit to my baby’s incubator in the NICU. “Breast milk is like medicine for preemies”, I was told. Every day I pumped around the clock and delivered milk to the NICU in the insulated bags they provided…like I was packing his lunch for school. Every milliliter was carefully inventoried and measured by the NICU nurses. I always knew from the looks on their faces if I had made enough to feed him for the day. Like I said- enormous pressure. Things were going okay until about 10 days after delivery. I developed mastitis on the right breast. For those unfamiliar, mastitis is an infection of the breast tissue. I had pain, high fever, and chills. After two antibiotics it resolved. Then I developed a second mastitis infection on the other side. The pain was excruciating. The infections did a number on my body, my sleep, and my milk production (and yes we worked with lactation consultants and did all sorts of tricks to try and increase production). My husband and I made the decision to switch my son to formula at 3 weeks old. We did it for his health, my health, and my ability to care for him when he was discharged. I can easily say it was the best decision we could have made. My sweet boy absolutely thrived on his special preemie formula. He tolerated it very well, grew, and got stronger. We are incredibly grateful for formula. To us, it is an amazing public health innovation. It feeds our baby when I cannot.
So it is through the lens of both a (proud) formula feeding mom and public health practitioner, that I examine the current public health campaigns focused on birth and infant feeding. A recurring theme for me is concern about the language being used in these campaigns. Somehow public health has not found an effective way to promote breastfeeding without stigmatizing formula feeding.
For example:
All birthing hospitals in Philadelphia have officially discontinued the practice of giving free formula to new mothers. While I understand that this strategy is supported by evidence, it is part of a larger international initiative to make hospitals “Baby Friendly”. So using that logic, providing formula is “unfriendly” to babies? This message was reinforced by Nurse McGinn who was interviewed for the philly.com story. She reports that she “was given free formula and threw it out”. Quotes like these reinforce the message that feeding with formula is equivalent to giving your kid poison.
A friend sent me a link to a wonderful story about supporting formula feeding moms during World Breastfeeding Week. This article does a great job of examining the language being used in this campaign. The terms connect breastfeeding with “winning” and achieving “goals”. So the flip side is “losing” and “falling short of your goals”? This can be a rough reminder for formula feeding moms. For many women, the switch to formula was made after extreme pain, guilt, and feelings of failure.
Recommendation: When thinking about health communication, I’m a big fan of testing out campaign terms, along with their antonyms. This can help you to anticipate unintended consequences of your messages.
For example, a public health colleague tweeted that we should use the language “breastfeeding is normal” instead of “breast is best”. Although it was not her intention, I read that as meaning that anything other than breastfeeding is abnormal. So formula feeding is abnormal?! Not a great message to send to women.
