Ann Bartow of Feminist Law Professors passes long a tidbit that was pulled out last week in the blogosphere but buried in the original NYT article. The upshot, Bartow points out, is women who breastfeed have…
...a 59 percent lower risk for these women with an immediate relative with breast cancer! Read the rest of the article for yourself here.  I helpfully provide the link because the story is difficult to find.  It’s not on the front page of the paper nor on the front page of the Science section. It’s not even summarized on the front page of the online section of the Science section (only a link), apparently bumped by other, more newsworthy articles. See (here) for yourself.
Interesting the placement of this article, considering how much front page attention the media has given to the benefits of breastfeeding for the baby (and all the guilt-tripping of those women who don’t). The media message seems to be:  You should breastfeed if you’re a good mom (although we’re not going to make it any easier for you by actually giving you a place to breastfeed at work, for example…) but not because it’s good for mom.
In other nutrition-related news there’s much kerfuffling about recent studies showing that organic food isn’t any more nutritious to consumers. With proponents arguing that the studies not being rigorous enough, and skeptics noting that if the studies have to be rigorous to demonstrate benefit the benefits can’t be large. And yet, relevant to Bartow’s post, one very clear benefit of organic food production is it minimizes farmer, farmworker, and food-handler’s exposure to toxic materials in quantities that don’t require rigorous studies to measure the effects of.
In both cases society obsesses over sometimes very small benefits that might accrue to food consumers, while remaining peculiarly oblivious to even very large benefits to either maternal or agricultural food producers.
Update: But doh! See Sungold of Kittywampus for a take on a) just how small a subset fall into the category of beneficiaries and b) that women have been told about previous stories about cancer reduction in an attempt to encourage breastfeeding.
And darn it all! When I first composed this post I had a section about how news like this should be just one more data point when making decisions to nurse one’s children, not a deciding factor in itself. (See also similar reasoning about alleged or real benefits of other activities.)
And in retrospect I don’t think I made clear that the point for me (and, I think, Ann Bartow) isn’t so much that breastfeeding is some great breakthrough for some women as the fact that potential life or health benefits of any sort to mothers as benefits to mothers are tend to be stinted compared to the heaps of attention paid to potential benefits to their children.
Submitted by 3127 (not verified) on Sun, 2009-08-16 08:33.
Thanks for the mention. In case people actually want to read what I said about it, the link is here:
http://kittywampus.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/curmudgeonly-thoughts-on-the...
[I was in a hurry when I posted that update but I can't believe I left out your link, Sungold. Sorry about that. --fl]
Submitted by 3127 (not verified) on Sun, 2009-08-16 13:03.
Well whether or not breastfeeding reduces the risk of cancer for some women or not, breastfeeding does benefit mothers. Let me count the ways...
Breastfeeding can suppress ovulation for a significant period of time.
The hormones released in the mother's body while breastfeeding help the mother to relax and bond with baby
Breastfeeding in the hours and days after the birth help the mother's uterus to contract and get back to normal
Mothers who breastfeed save money because human milk is free
Mothers who breastfeed do not have to prepare bottles in the middle of the night and have less stuff to bring when going out
And then there are the many many benefits to baby, which most mothers would probably be interested in as well. Human milk is the perfect food for babies and is complete nutrition for up to the first year of life. It is always free, available, always the right temperature. And breastfed babies' poop does not smell bad until the baby starts eating solid food, after 6 months.
This is just off the top of my head. There are many more benefits to breastfeeding.
Submitted by 3127 (not verified) on Sun, 2009-08-16 18:11.
The real bottom line is that there are both pros and cons to breast feeding. Having seen the best studies, I don't consider it an issue worth being fanatical about either for or against.
As a matter of fact organic food ISN'T more nutritious than conventional food, to any any large extent. However, some non-organic produce may have pesticide residues on it, than organic rarely if ever would. And of course, organic crops use less toxic methods of pest control.
Submitted by 3127 (not verified) on Sun, 2009-08-16 19:59.
[i]Mothers who breastfeed save money because human milk is free[/i]
I would seriously doubt this. Unless the milk is being produced out of thin air, using only energy that would otherwise be wasted, human milk is not "free" in any meaningful sense - there's still an increase in the mother's food consumption. Granted, the mother's body usually produces colostrum and then milk for a bit before and after birth whether she wants to do so or not, but after that there is a cost for long-term lactation.
I'm not saying they shouldn't, just that "free" probably isn't a valid reason.
[Yes, Nightfall, technically it's not "free" since a mother obviously has to consume *some* food to make breast milk. Still, compared to the price of commercial alternatives the cost of the food needed is small enough for quibbling over the word "free" in ordinary conversation is, well, quibbling. --fl]
Submitted by 3127 (not verified) on Mon, 2009-08-17 09:12.
I think the "breastmilk is free" idea is actually counter-productive. In Norway, where the production of breastmilk is calculated into the GNP, far more women breastfeed. There are many other factors, of course, but I do think knowing that breastfeeding is valuable makes a difference. Conversely, in many impoverished countries, formula feeding is seen as a sign of wealth.
The bit from the Atlantic article that spoke to me was the idea that breastfeeding is only free if a mother's time is worthless...
Submitted by 3127 (not verified) on Mon, 2009-08-17 11:26.
Actually in many countries especially in impoverished ones, formula feeding is a way to protect children from HIV infection if their mothers are positive. When formula was introduced it was considered a way to reduce infant mortality through malnourishment and poor hygeine. Even today, access to affordable formula can be a godsend to some communities where overworked underfed women are heavily burdened by breastfeeding. Basically if one woman can't nurse, a sister or cousin is expected to "fill in". Also for mothers who have a high history of exposure to certain pollutants and/or just don't produce much milk, it can be a godsend option. Furthermore if a fully breastfed kid doesn't get the vitamin K shot, there is a minor risk of cerebral hemorage. (Formula is vitamin K fortified.)
Yes, we all know about the Nestle baby formula case and all the babies who died. But that was really more a story about how a greedy corporation misused a perfectly legitimate and indeed beneficial product, rather than a story of "Breastfeeding good. Formula bad." People have missed the point. Those children died because of poverty, because of now 2 billion human being lack access to clean water, and finally because Nestle promoted the formula in a way that was questionable, entirely profit motivated, and did not take into account the local contexts. Furthermore, it's a safe bet that some of the kids who died drinking bad formula, would have only died upon weaning when they were first exposed to the unsanitary water more directly. (Which kind of makes water, poverty, and corporate greed bigger issues than breastmilk.) Also in much of the world a combination of poverty and lack of education often mean that babies and small children don't get fed very nourishing things after weaning and/or as supplementary food. Finally, since women are often fed after men and children, this can mean low milk production.
In a developed world context, breastmilk not only isn't "free", but the benefits while worth noting just aren't strong enough to create a situation where women should be labeled as "bad mothers" if they use formula or worry about their kids' health if they just aren't good milk producers.
There never was a golden age before evil formula was invented, where all children were breastfed by their mothers. In the past children often were fed animals or passed on to sisters if their mothers couldn't produce milk for some reason. In the book "When Heaven and Earth Changed Places" Le Ly Hayslip talks about how she was fed Buffalo milk, because her mother had trouble in this area, and that was Vietnam where milk typically wasn't an accepted food for weaned children and adults. From antiquity to the deep south slaves were sometimes used for that purpose. Or in other contexts children were fed things like "pot liquor", meat juices, very thin gruels, and other things if they weren't getting enough to eat from breastmilk.
Bottom line it isn't a black and white issue.
Submitted by 3127 (not verified) on Mon, 2009-08-17 12:55.
I'm going to be a pooter and close comments on this post. All the comments so far are true, including the seemingly-contradictory ones, but the only on-topic comments are Sungold's and the first part of Sugarmag's. Benefits to infants is not the topic. Economics is not the topic. And even the economic valuations of women domestic roles is not the topic. Even though they're all good topics all sides are and have been well covered in other venues.
Instead the topic was obliviousness to or discomfort with the possibility that benefits might ever accrue to mothers in a way that was *independent* of benefits to their offspring. Call it the "Cosmo for mothers," extending the Cosmo philosophy that be all about women sacrificing their own comfort, pleasure, and self-fulfillment for the benefit of her partner to similar sacrificing for the benefit of her offspring.
And, come to think of it, an unstated secondary topic is the assumption that recognition of a benefit introduces not just a justification but an *obligation* to do it, instead of one more factor to be considered when making a decision.
Actually, I'm not going to close comments. But I am going to ask people to stay on topic.
(Eerie ReCaptcha keywords: "availing obviates")
Submitted by 3127 (not verified) on Mon, 2009-08-17 20:17.
Um, I'm not sure my initial post was all that apposite! But in any event, I've written a follow-up post that looks at the costs of breastfeeding to mothers, mostly in physical terms. I'm happy to continue discussing this angle, here or at my place.
For you, figleaf, I've got a chicken-and-egg question: Which came first, women's sacrifices to men in the sexual realm, or their sacrifices as mothers? Please on't feel like you need to answer this question immediately. I just think this angle might provide another perspective on your "no-sex class" theory. Or maybe it just leads us back to the virgin/whore dichotomy?
Recaptcha: martyred Linda
Figleaf, if I click preview, there's no recaptcha, and I get an error if I then click submit. You've still got at least one bug.
[About the reCaptcha thing. I think what happens is the software assumes you've typed the matching text before you press "preview." And so it doesn't bother showing it again. And yes, that's a bug. You can work around it by filling it out first though. I'll look into finding a way around though. About chickens, eggs, and the no-sex class I think the first place to look would be at people's relationships with their own mothers. And their mother's relationships to them. One of the big quirks in Cosmo-think, as Holly of Pervocracy often notes, is that they seem to encourage an almost intrusive, almost mothering metaphor for women to follow with their partners. (E.g. reading their mail, throwing out clothes of theirs you don't like.) I don't think it has to be that way but it certainly seems to *go* that way for some people. Thanks, Sungold! --fl]
Submitted by 3127 (not verified) on Mon, 2009-08-17 20:29.
Was my comment eaten?
[Hi Five. I'm afraid it must have been. I'm very sorry! As Sungold pointed out it looks like there's an error where you have to fill out the ReCaptcha fields before clicking Preview. Even though that doesn't make much sense. Once again I'm sorry your comment was lost and I'll look into at least adding a warning about previewing. --fl]