Will Formula Feeding Harm My Baby?

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Should sexist assumptions drive mothering choices? Of course not. However the biological fact that only mothers can breastfeed is not sexist – it is merely true. It is an imposition of personal prejudice to assume that breastfeeding constitutes a loss of bodily, emotional, or psychological autonomy for all women. For some women, it is none of these.  For many women these burdens are largely the result of a lack of economic and social supports – a variable far more capable of mitigation than the biological and emotional risks to the child of not being breastfed.

Parents must assess risks every day—whether or not to use a car seat, whether a child should wear a bicycle helmet, whether to let the child ride down the street alone, etc. We combine objective criteria (the demonstrated risk of riding a bike with no helmet) with more subjective criteria—how far is he going to ride? Is it daylight or dark? Is this a rural back road or a busy urban street? We take responsibility for those risk assessments all the time, and in doing so seek to answer three questions:

•    Is there a danger?

•    How great is the danger?

•    Do the circumstances of my life allow me to mitigate those dangers?

Society has imposed restrictions on women that more narrowly define the circumstances under which a woman could choose to breastfeed. Her employment environment, her financial situation, and the availability of accurate, up-to-date support for breastfeeding may dictate that breastfeeding is not an option.  Far more effort should be directed toward incorporating breastfeeding and other parenting acts into all facets of social life. However, whether breastfeeding is an option does not alter whether formula is harmful. Those risks exist, and perhaps we need to be working to remove the obstacles that prevent women from having the freedom to choose to breastfeed.

To describe breastfeeding as an outgrowth of a contemporary social ethos ignores human history. Breastfeeding is a biological norm – not a fad inextricably linked to changing attitudes toward moral female behavior. Judgment about appropriate female behavior in fact discriminates against breastfeeding women as evidenced by the all too frequent harassment of women who breastfeed in public space.