I may have gotten into trouble with some Facebook friends yesterday…

You see, I got something in the mail that I didn’t appreciate very much, and I complained about it.

Formula samples.

And I think some people thought I was bashing formula, or bashing moms who can’t breastfeed, or something like that. I wasn’t. The subject of my irritation was the companies who market it to vulnerable new moms, swaying them away from what could be one of the greatest gifts of motherhood – breastfeeding.

I love science. Have I said that?

The human body is a pretty amazing thing, and even more amazing is the way one body grows and nourishes another – in most cases, for at least nine whole months. But it’s not supposed to stop at birth. There’s a complex cocktail of hormones that are produced at different times and in different seasons of a woman’s life, and when she’s expecting, her baby’s placenta produces its own set of hormones to help prepare her body for both labor and lactation.

During pregnancy, prolactin and human placental lactogen are already present, preparing glands and ducts in the breasts to deliver milk to the baby, but estrogen and progesterone (now produced by the placenta instead of the ovaries and corpus luteum, respectively) block the flow of milk; then when the placenta follows the baby out of the birth canal, estrogen and progesterone levels drop dramatically, triggering the new mom’s milk to “come in” within that first week.

But we live in sin-cursed world, and sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes a woman’s prolactin levels aren’t quite high enough, or her thyroid hormones aren’t quite high enough, or she never developed quite enough glandular tissue in her breasts during puberty. Sometimes she has to be on medication that isn’t safe for her baby, sometimes she has a set of mental/emotional struggles that make the process of learning to breastfeed or the act of breastfeeding extra difficult, and sometimes she has no one to answer her questions and tell her that she’s doing the right thing.

So I know it doesn’t always work perfectly. I know that some women aren’t capable of exclusively breastfeeding their babies, and a few women can’t do it at all. It’s not her fault. I do not blame mothers for this. Sometimes there’s no one to blame at all.

But sometimes…frequently, in fact…she is capable – but she doesn’t. That’s not usually her fault either! In those cases, I blame formula companies.

Okay, so free market capitalism says that if you can convince people to buy your product, you deserve to make money, and I mostly agree with that. But I also think that there are standards of ethics that ought to be met, and corporations shouldn’t have the right to contribute to a decline in the health of the population at large just to line their pockets. (*cough* Big Pharma *cough*)

Formula is good enough, most of the time. But it’s not MILK. Babies’ bodies are designed to thrive on a certain set of nutrients, and different balances of those nutrients at different times. Milk – from boobs, not a factory – provides this. It has everything a baby needs, in the perfect proportions, and nothing they don’t. It changes and adapts to their requirements – and environment – as they grow. It protects and prepares their digestive systems, supports and builds their immune systems, and even boosts their future cognitive function. And the benefits aren’t just physical! Breastfeeding makes it easier, in most cases, for moms to bond with their new littles. It strengthens the most important relationship one human ever has with another, and when done the way it’s meant to be done (instead of by trying to copy bottle-feeding), it teaches new humans that the world is a good place where their physical and emotional needs can be met.

Side note: You can absolutely bond with your baby and teach them these things while still formula-feeding, or giving milk in bottles – but it takes more effort because it has to be a conscious choice, and isn’t supported by those nice mama hormones (primarily oxytocin).

Aggressive marketing of formula to moms and future moms who haven’t yet determined that they need or want it steals those benefits from children. It even undermines women who really do want to breastfeed: it can make them question their decision; weaken their resolve; and, yeah, trick them into supplementing when it isn’t necessary.

Formula marketing makes it harder for new moms to find the right kind of support as they embark on their [really difficult] parenting journey. Breastfeeding and bottle-feeding are different, and trying to follow the rules for one when you’re doing the other is going to cause problems, so when bottle-feeding is the norm, breastfeeding moms get bad advice from (hopefully) well-meaning people. The result is that they think they can’t nurse, when in reality they’re doing just fine. Or maybe they do have a problem that needs to be dealt with, but no one in their support circle knows how to help, because they’re just completely clueless about something that’s been criticized or ignored for multiple generations.

I think this post is getting too long; I’m sure you get my point. There’s nothing wrong with formula existing, but it needs to not be normal.

The stuff I got in the mail? I’d really love to throw it out, but the truth is that there might be someone out there who needs it, so it’ll get donated.

And if I need to supplement, my first choice will be donor milk, and my second choice NOT a mainstream brand.