It often seems that major appeal of natural parenting is shaming women who do not comply. Mom shaming is the new slut shaming. Take the Fraser Health hospitals new breastfeeding contract. It exemplifies everything wrong with contemporary breastfeeding advocacy: it is demeaning, infantilizing, it tramples on a woman’s right to control her own body, and it makes claims that are not supported by science. According to Jennifer Pinarski, writing in the Canadian edition of Today’s Parent:
The pressure on moms to breastfeed is real. British Columbia’s Fraser Health hospitals is asking new moms to sign an Infant Feeding Declaration. The document outlines the pros and cons of formula feeding and breastfeeding—listing the increased risks of SIDS, certain childhood cancers, obesity and diabetes with formula use. As if responsibility for a tiny, new human isn’t terrifying enough, I can only imagine how new moms struggling with breastfeeding must feel when signing the Infant Feeding Declaration.
Raina Delisle at iVillage reports:
Some highlights from the form include: “Although most babies grow on formula, studies show the routine use of formula comes with some risks to both mothers and babies.” “Even one feed of formula can damage (baby’s gut) coating and make illness more likely.” “Babies who do not receive breast milk are more likely to get significant illness and disease.” “And … mothers can take longer to lose their pregnancy weight.” So, your baby may not grow on formula, even one bottle can make him sick and the little guy is 38.5 per cent more likely suffer from SIDS. Oh, and you’ll be wearing those maternity jeans for a while longer.
WTF??!!
Four blatant lies, unsupported by any scientific evidence! Routine use of formula comes with no more risks than routine exclusive breastfeeding, just different ones. The only “risk” of exclusive formula feeding is a tiny increase in trivial neonatal illnesses. There is NO EVIDENCE, zip, zero, nada, that anything else is caused by formula feeding. The data that exists is weak, conflicting and riddled with confounders. There is NO EVIDENCE that formula IN ANY AMOUNT damages the neonatal intestinal lining, and it is a bald faced lie to suggest that there is. There is NO EVIDENCE that term babies who do not receive breast milk are more likely to get significant illnesses, the only solid evidence that exists suggests that there is a small increased risk of TRIVIAL illnesses. There is NO EVIDENCE that every woman will lose weight while breastfeeding. Weight loss depends on a myriad of factors, and some women will won’t lose weight at all while breastfeeding since it makes them ravenously hungry.
While we are on the subject of scientific evidence, there is no evidence that I am aware of that making mothers sign breastfeeding contracts improves infant outcomes (supposedly the goal) or even breastfeeding rates, the classic natural parenting elevation of process over outcome. So if there is NO EVIDENCE that breastfeeding contracts improve anything at all, why go to the time and trouble to create them, print them and get women to sign them? Why? To shame women, of course. That’s why the contract is demeaning, infantilizing, and tramples on a woman’s precious right to control her own body. It’s the mothering equivalent of slut-shaming. The parallels are really quite remarkable. What is slut shaming? According to Wikipedia:
Slut shaming … is a neologism used to describe the act of making a person, especially a woman, feel guilty or inferior for certain sexual behaviors, circumstances or desires that deviate from traditional or orthodox gender expectations, or that which may be considered to be contrary to natural or religious law. Some examples of circumstances where women are “slut-shamed” include: violating accepted dress codes by dressing in sexually provocative ways, requesting access to birth control, having premarital or casual sex, or being raped or sexually assaulted.
Mom shaming is the act of making a woman feel guilty or inferior for certain parenting behaviors that deviate from “natural parenting” expectations, which, in the minds of those doing the shaming, is considered to be natural law. Examples of circumstances where women are “mom shamed” include: “failing” at breastfeeding or worse, refusing to breastfeed; “giving in” and getting an epidural for labor pain, or worse, actually planning on it; having a C-section or worse, requesting one. Mom shaming, as in slut shaming, assumes that anything bad that happens to the mother is her fault for not trying hard enough, not trusting deeply enough, or simply having a defective body. And, as is the case with slut shaming, mom shaming has a lot to do with social class. As Marisa Taylor, reporting on a new study, explains:
The researchers discovered that definitions of “slutty” behavior and the act of slut-shaming was largely determined along class lines rather than based on actual sexual behavior. What’s more, they found the more affluent women were able to engage in more sexual experimentation without being slut-shamed, while the less-affluent women were ridiculed as sluts for being “trashy” or “not classy,” even though they engaged in less sexual behavior.
Sociology Professor Elizabeth Armstrong, one of the study’s authors, noted:
By engaging in ‘slut-shaming’ — the practice of maligning women for presumed sexual activity — women at the top create more space for their own sexual experimentation, at the cost of women at the bottom of social hierarchies.
Similarly, by engaging in mom shaming, Western, white, relatively well off women create more space for their own parenting practices, at the cost of women of color and poor women at the bottom of social hierarchies. It’s bad enough that natural parenting advocates engage in mom shaming of women who don’t mirror their own parenting choices back to them. It is completely unacceptable that Fraser Health has joined them in this odious practice.
Make no mistake. There is NO BENEFIT to a breastfeeding contract for babies or for mothers. The only people who benefit are lactivists and lactation consultants, the Western, white, well of women who simply adore shaming anyone who is not like them, and who cement their place in the social hierarchy by shaming women who won’t follow their parenting “norms.”
Fraser Health should withdraw the breastfeeding contract immediately, and issue an apology for ever using it in the first place.
