If you were blessed to bring a child into this world, you are undoubtedly familiar with pressure (societal, familial, cultural, Facebook-al?) To nourish your offspring in the most optimum way possible.

For new mothers, this is overwhelmingly breastfeeding. Before a child reaches a certain age, I, speaking as a person who only breastfed, can see how formula-shaming is especially strong in the earliest days of motherhood. We have shifted toward a more breastfeeding-friendly society — to a point — where mothers who can’t, or simply do not wish to breastfeed are pressured or shamed into rejecting formula.

Already disparaged by many of the very people whose job it is to help them settle in to their daunting new role, formula-using new mothers are then subjected to a slew of criticism from sanctimonious know-it-alls.

Of course, even if a new mother wants to breastfeed, and gives birth in a place that encourages her to do so, she will eventually have to leave the hospital, birthing center or her home and confront a society which may agree and even pressure her into nursing, but has no desire to see her feed her child in public. As if the only acceptable way to breastfeed is in the hospital after delivery or in one’s home.

And, if a breastfeeding mother should decide to continue feeding her child in that manner beyond one year or more, she is no longer a loving women providing valuable nutrients to her child, but rather a freakish, selfish abuser.

The debate over how we nourish our babies is awful and unending, but at least the shaming stops when the breastmilk dries up or the formula runs out, right?

Wrong. Continue reading →