Mothers should not be forced to breast feed

A study has shown that breastfed babies have higher
IQs, spend longer in education and earn more in their
careers - but there are too many variables and women
should not be pressurised

If there’s one thing we as a society love to do, it’s to have a
good go at mothers. Be they single or working, everyone
loves to voice an opinion about how to raise children, and
unfortunately it’s mothers who tend to bear the brunt of this,
rather than fathers. Health professionals are not free from

the habit either. 

We dish out advice to expectant and new
mothers and then wag our fingers when it’s not heeded. Do
this, don’t do that and never mind that what we say always
seems to change and contradict itself. Keep up now, mums,
or you’ll be responsible for a generation of feral youths.
Nowhere is the unrelenting pressure mothers are under
more evident than in the arena of breastfeeding. This one
biological act has become politicised and polarised like no
other. Don’t breastfeed your children and you are
condemning them to a life of illness and disease, mothers
are told. And now, according to research published last
week, they’ll also be thick.
A Brazilian study of more than 6,000 babies from a variety
of backgrounds showed that those who were breastfed had
higher IQs , spent longer in education and earned more in
their careers. The longer they were breastfed as a baby, the
greater their success. The research was immediately
pounced on, feeding in, as it does, to the narrative that
problems in a person’s life can be laid wholly at the feet of
the mother.
Doctors and midwives have had a difficult time with
breastfeeding. On the one hand it is undoubtedly a good
thing and women should be supported and helped if they
choose to do it. But what is less often talked about is the
stress and difficulty that many women experience with
breastfeeding, compounded by the sense that they are
failing their children immeasurably if they do not do it. The
evidence morphs into dogma that says women are
irresponsible if they don’t breastfeed.
Breast-fed babies grow up smarter and richer, study shows
The research itself is never questioned or queried. But just
how reliable <ital>is<end ital> the latest study on
breastfeeding and IQ anyway? It’s a very well-designed
project, ambitious in its scope and size. But when it comes
to something like breastfeeding, there are so many
confounding factors – variables that can inadvertently skew
the result and lead us to false conclusions. Because the
problem is, the health benefits associated with
breastfeeding are also associated with things such as class,
wealth and education of the parents. When factors such as
social background are taken into account, the evidence
supporting the health benefits of breastfeeding suddenly
looks less robust. We know that those who are
economically and socially advantaged are more likely to
breastfeed, so it is perfectly possible it’s actually the
positive aspects of wealth and class we are observing, not
the positive aspects of breastfeeding. Of course, this
particular study took place in Brazil, which is socially very
different to the UK, so again it is difficult to draw any firm
conclusions from it.
When it comes to IQ, things get even more complicated. The
study is a retrospective analysis, meaning it tested people’s
IQ 30 years on from when they were actually breastfed. Over
that time an incredible number of variables would have
influenced the result, so it’s impossible to say from the way
this study is designed whether or not the apparent
increased IQ is really the result of breastfeeding, or due to
some other factor. Certainly the findings are interesting, but
it is in no way concrete evidence. Rather, it is simply the
first in a long, complex series of studies that would need to
be done to differentiate between simple association or
actual causation.
But the breastfeeding lobby seems too narrow-minded and
dogmatic to allow for such caveats or critiques to the
research they use to browbeat nervous mothers-to-be. The
“Breast Is Best” mantra was intended to be a liberating,
pithy riposte to the slick commercial formula milk
advertising, yet it has become a stick with which to beat
women. It would be awful if expectant or new mothers read
this research and felt under yet more pressure to breastfeed
if they are unable to do so. I would far rather have a mother
who was bottle-feeding a baby and felt calm and relaxed
than one who was depressed and anxious about the fact she
was not lactating adequately. Motherhood is stressful
enough without feeling the weight of your child’s entire

future rests on your breasts.

Posted by Donatus Joshua at 14:45