Breastfeeding and the "Secret" Art of Father/Child Bonding

August 1 - 7 was World Breastfeeding Week:

"The World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) was formed in 1991 to act on the Innocenti Declaration (1990) to protect, promote and support breastfeeding. As part of its action plan to facilitate and strengthen social mobilisation for breastfeeding, WABA envisioned a global unifying breastfeeding promotion strategy. A day dedicated to breastfeeding was suggested to be marked in the calendar of international events.

The idea of a day's celebration was later turned into a week. This has become to be known as World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) celebrated every 1-7 August to commemorate the Innocenti Declaration. World Breastfeeding Week was first celebrated in 1992. Now it involves over 170 countries and is endorsed by UNICEF, WHO and FAO. " (http://worldbreastfeedingweek.net/)

I've been forming a blog post in my head for months about one particular criticism breastfeeding cops. The tired old chestnut of "but the baby's father needs to bond with the child too" as an excuse/justification for the use of Artificial Breast Milk (ABM), which in this society is more commonly known as "formula" (which is the only time you will see it referred to as such here because calling it that is the marketers attempt to make is sound scientific and superior to breastmilk, which it simply isn't). As a partner and father supportive of extended breastfeeding this excuse/justification for the use of ABM shits me up the wall, it is one of my absolute pet peeves.

To explain why, I'm going to start by stating as fact here that ABM endangers a child's health. You can either choose to believe that or not believe it, or you simply go and look at some of the research available that indicates the risks associated with the use of ABM include but are not limited to: increased risk of a child suffering from obesity, diabetes, asthma, gastroenteritis, allergies, respiratory infections, urinary tract infections, Leukaemia and lymphoma, mental health morbidity and dental problems. The use of ABM does not have risks for children but also for mothers, with mothers who don't breastfeed at greater risk of suffering breast and ovarian cancer, diabetes and osteoporosis (see here: http://pdfcast.org/pdf/breastfeeding-and-breast-milk). Is it any wonder that the World Health Organisation recommends children are exclusively breastfeed until 6 months of age, and that they continue to be breastfeed until they are at least 2-years-old? (see here: http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/infantfeeding_recommendation/en/index.html)

Now there are any number of reasons why parents decide to exclusively use ABM, comp feed, or switch to ABM early in a childs life. Most of these have to do with the lack of education, accurate information, support systems and societal views of breastfeeding, rather than a woman's inability to breastfeed. However, the notion that parents could decide to put their child's health at risk because the only way the father feels he can bond with their child is to shove a plastic bottle in its face is out of my realm of understanding.

My child is 2.5 years old and she continues to breastfeeed, there is also no sign at the moment that she has any interest in weaning. She was exclusively breastfeed for 8.5 months, and despite the introduction of solids she didn't actually start eating a great deal of food until about 13-14 months of age (this is because the diet from 6 to 12 months is really an "experimental diet" where children learn to explore and experiment with foods, breastmilk should continue to be their primary source of nutrition for 12 months because it is a whole food. Never again will our daughter be able to get so much nutrition from one food source!). In the entire 2.5 years of her life I have never feed her bottle of even expressed breastmilk. The notion that this means I cannot have bonded with her is ludicrous.

As a father, their is numerous and simple ways you can bond with your child that do not involve endangering his or her health. You can bathe with your child, you can change her nappy, you can cuddle your child, you can sleep with your child, you can wear your child in a wrap, sling or carrier, you can hold your child, you can play with your child, you can listen to your child, you can let your child help you cook, you can read to your child, the list could go on and on. Their is no secret to bonding with your child, it is about being present with your child and interacting with him or her in a caring and loving manner. I have engaged in many of these activities nearly every single day of my child's life and we are very well connected to each other. You too can bond with your children without endangering their health.

I actually find it difficult to believe that bottle feeding helps a father, or even a mother bond with their child. By it's very nature it allows a parent to detach from their child. The number of times I have seen a child in a pram with a bottle propped up in its mouth is staggering to me, it just reinforces to me that ABM feeding can very easily allow a parent to detach from their child.

So if the only thing that is preventing your child from being breastfeed is a concern about how the child father will bond with them, rest assured, it is very easy for a father to bond with their child without endangering their health with the use of ABM.

Links
Blokes, Boobs and Breastfeeding

Fathers and Breastfeeding

Kellymom

Dr Jack Newman

iBreastfed

Le Leche League

Australian Breastfeeding Association

Articles

Breastfeeding - Getting it Right

Suck on This

Language of Breastfeeding

Artificial Feeding - Nothing to do with Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding and Guilt

Is My Baby Hungry? Do I Have Enough Milk?

Myths

5 Months Later....

And I think it is time to give this blogging caper another go.

It has been a fairly intense 5 months and there are plenty of things to blog about and have decided to go with the least exciting first, mostly because it's 4am and I don't care if I don't do the topic justice. Ironically that last sentiment is exactly what this blog post is about.

On Saturday 17th of July Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard called the Federal Election, to be held on Saturday 21st August. That is a campaign of little over a month, so far, as I daresay many if not the majority of Australians have paid little to no attention to the election campaign. The fact that the Government has chosen to go to the polls on the back of such a short campaign period, and as far as I know the Opposition has hardly shouted their anger or disapproval of such a short campaign, it makes me think that neither Party wants the Australian public to engage in this election at any greater level than listening to their sound bites, rhetoric and cliches on the nightly news (if only I got a dollar everytime a politician used the term 'working families' this election, well I would end up having many dollars).

It is saddening to think that it's not so much the cynic in me that makes me think the Government called for such a short election campaign so the Opposition doesn't have enough time to make up the required ground in the polls to actually win, but is more likely the realist in me. It also seems to be an indication of the Government's lack of policy initiatives, although after all the policy stuff ups during their first term (Copenhagen & ETS, the Insulation Program, the Mining Supertax, the "I Can't Believe It's Not the 'Pacific Solution' Solution to 'illegal boat people", the Education Revolution etc etc) I can understand why they might be a bit gun shy about policy announcements.

I'm struggling to develop any interest in this election, because both Parties seem to get more and more alike everyday, depressingly because Labor seems to drift more and more to the Right (as demonstrated by their non-Pacific Solution Pacific Solution to illegal immigration), rather than the Liberals drifting more to the Left. Disappointly it seems the Labor Party has been making all key decision on the basis of opinon polls. Kevin Rudd got bad opinion polls and the Party knifed him in the back and replaced him with Gillard. Opinion polls showed illegal immigration and 'border protection' to be key areas of concern for the Australian Public. All of a sudden Labor rushes out an announcement about planning to set up a 'processing centre' in East Timor, without bothering to consult with the East Timorese Govenment, who have since stated that they are not interested. It was poorly thought out and executed policy that was a desperate attempt to show they too are strong on border security.

What I find particularly scary about the Labor drift to the Right, it has also allowed the Opposition to drift further Right. Labor announces their plans to reintroduce off shore processing, which is shortly countered with a very vague response from the Liberal Party demonstrating they are truly the toughest on illegal immigration for they are going to make the boats turn around and return to whence they came. Apparently proving you are the biggest heartless bastard is what wins you votes in this country. If so this country is fucked.

It's now two days since I first started this post and still have no idea what has been happening in the campaign, whatever it is I'm sure it will have been driven by an opinion poll that has an over-representation of white anglo saxon males aged 18-49.

If you too are as cycnical and pessimistic about this election, I welcome you to join me "throwing away your vote" and voting for a third party/indpendant candiate, who knows they could just end up holding the balance of power and prevent us from all being enslaved and forced to build a giant ray gun aimed at some planet we have never heard of.

Some Flagrant Plagerism of Some Flagrant Plargism

My partner just posted this one her blog, after stealing it from Kint's blog. I have decided to also steal it because someone who shall remain nameless wants a new blog post from me.

"So I kind of got this idea from another blog, was just scanning and found a blog where she was answering questions, not sure when/where she was asked but it gave me a blog idea.... seeing as I have so many loyal followers, i encourage you all to ask me a question and I will answer it...

You can be random, or funny (or try to be) or serious or a little bit naughty... and I will endeavour to answer then all..."

So ask me a question, or not, whatever :-)

Pay It Forward

I found this "Pay it Forward" thingo at my friends blog, Somewhere of Jen's Rainbow http://rainbowjenjen.blogspot.com/.

I decided to get myself involved in this because I've been meaning to learn/do woodwork for years but also find some excuse to put it off. Well no more I says, what better way to motivate myself to learn and new skill than to give myself three orders to fill before I've even started.

So how will it work:

The first three people to comment on this blog post, will receive a hand made gift from me (that may or may not be a piece of wood work) in the next 365 days.

What it will be and when in the next 365 days you will receive is yet to be determined.

Bear in mind though, that if you want to get something from me you must also be willing to Pay it Forward?

On a somewhat slighlty related point, has anyone seen the movie of the same name with Helen Hunt, Kevin Spacey and I think it was the kid from Sixth Sense, is it worth seeing?

A Community Service Announcement

The following is a e-mail I have just sent to Budget Motel Chain in relation to one of their motels- Rippleside Park Motor Inn in Geelong. If you are planning a trip to Geelong I highly recommended you do not stay a Rippleside Park Motor Inn.

To Whom it May Concern,

I wish to make a complaint about one of the Motels in your chain. My wife, a friend, I and our children stayed at Rippleside Park Motor Inn North Geelong on the nights of the 11/01/10 & 12/01/10 checking out on the morning of 13/01/10.

During our stay their was an issue with the plumbing in our bathroom, what the exact issue was, I'm not sure but we came back from being out all day on the 12th to find the bathroom and toilet area flooded. Unfortunately, some of this water had leaked into the carpeted area of the room. We laid down some towels and immediately notified reception of what had occured before going out again.

That day we had paid to get internet access in the room, but when we returned the login in we had been given was not working. I went to reception but by that stage it was closed, as we had some urgent business that we needed Internet access for, I knocked on the owners door. I did not receive a response, so I went back to our room. Shortly later one of the managers knocked on our door, I explained the issue, to which they totally ignored before launching into a rant about the states of her floor and she basically accused us of deliberately and maliciously damanging the room.

At this stage I mentioned the fact that the room had be fine when we left in the morning, and that as soon as we got back and noticed the water leak we had informed them. I had stated that we had noticed that there was an issue with the cold water tap and that you had to turn it incredibly hard to make sure it was fully off. However, the owners assured this would not have been the cause as their cleaning person would have checked the bathroom thoroughly and turned the tap off if we had accidentally left it running.

We then went back to reception to determine if we could fix the issue we where having with the Internet. The owner was joined by her husband and again they pretty much ignored the issue with the Internet and continued to accuse over the damage to the room. They also accused us of trying to hide the fact we had our friend staying in the room with us because we had not mentioned when we checked in. When we checked in our friend was not going to be staying with us, but at another motel in Geelong. Her plans fell through and since we had a bed we weren't using in our room we offered it to her, this was arranged after hours when the owners weren't in reception so we decided to tell them when we checked out and pay the extra money then. We made no attempt to hide our friend or her son from the owners and knew they had seen her coming and going with us.

That night when they questioned me about I foolishly denied that our friend was staying with us due to the over the top, and accusatory response we had received to water leak we had the room which we had nothing to do. I was afraid to be honest with them initially because I was worried about what they might do to us over something that was our fault when they had been so awful to us over something that had nothing to do with us. I did, however, later admit that our friend was staying with us and that we would be find with paying the extra money for her. At the end of that meeting I apologised for denying our friend was staying there and for the damage to the room despite the fact we had nothing to do with it. The female owner was still upset, but her husband assured me everything was okay.

The next morning when I went to check out and pay the extra amount for our friend who also stayed with us, I was again lectured about the state of the room. The female owner accused us that the towel she picked up of the floor was brown and accused us of being untruthful and suggested that we had spilt coke, (this despite the floor being so flooded that we would have had to have poured about 20 x 2 L bottles of coke on the floor to get that amount of liquid), when I pointed this out to her she moved on to accusing us of damaging the floor with hair dye, which would be even more costly to us than pouring coke on her floors!

I again informed her of the problem with the tap and she stated that she did not think this caused the problem. I also stated that there was some water around the toilet that morning, so maybe the toilet was leaking, again this was dismissed. She was convinced we had spilt some kind of brown liquid all over the floor. I stated that this was not the case and that if we had we would of told her. I stated that their was leak with their plumbing and that the brown tinge to the liquid was probably due to the water reaching the carpeted area and drawing up some dirt from the carpet and floorboards. Again this was dismissed.

It seemed apparent to me that the owner wanted to blame us for the damages. I find it interesting that at no stage did the owners consider apologising for the leak and the fact that we were forced to stay in a room with a significant patch of soaked carpet. They also showed no interest in the damage caused to our belongings which were on the floor at the time of the leak.

While I was checking out, the other owner was outside being abusive and agressive towards my wife. He shoved his head into the car the women were sitting in to count the passengers. My wife and her friend were made to feel very threatened by this man and after he left my wife decided to let him know that his behaviour was inappropriate, especially to women. When she approached him and gently explained how he had made her and our friend feel he took it as an invitation to be more rude and abusive towards her and he began to lecture her. I find it interesting that the night before when he was face to face with another male everything was apparently fine, but the next morning he took the opportunity to twice yell at, and stand over my wife, while I was not there. He admitted to my wife that his issue was with me for having lied about having another person in the room, but at no point did he come to me to talk about it, he chose instead to single out the women and treat them in an abusive manner over an issue he had with another man. I find this behaviour incredibly inappropriate and mysoginist and I worry for every woman who has the misfortunate of staying in his establishment if this is how he thinks women should be treated. If this is how he treats women who are staying with a man, I can only imagine how scary it must be for a woman staying there by herself.

When my wife realised he was not going to apologise for his behaviour and was getting closer to her and yelling louder at her she said "I think we should leave it at that" and began walking away to make herself feel safe again, as she did the owner screamed at her "GOOD! THE SOONER YOU GET OUT OF HERE, THE SOONER YOU GET AWAY FROM HERE AND NEVER COME BACK, THE BETTER!" My wife was shaking when I found her in the car after checking out.

By this stage we were outraged with the behaviour of the owners of the motel and had decided that we would never be staying there again and could not wait to get out of there. I'm e-mailing you, because after the way we were treated during our stay at Rippleside Park Motor Inn I have no wish to speak to the owners/managers of that establishement ever again. I wanted you to be aware of the treatment we received at this motel and feel you should carefully consider whether you want it to continue to be linked with your chain/business. We have stayed at a number of other motels in your chain and the staff and establishments have always been lovely. I feel that this motel has the possibility to tarnish the otherwise good name of our business and felt you should be made aware of this situation.

PS This e-mail was a joint piece of work with my partner.

"Justice For Tracey?"

"Justice for Tracey" is what the parents of Tracey Greenbury deemed the sentence of her killer Leigh Robinson.

On Friday, Lee Robinson was sentenced to life in jail, with no chance of parole, for the callous and brutal exceution of Tracey Greenbury. Ms Greenbury had recently ended a 3 month relationship with Mr Robinson when he visited her home on April 28, 2008. They argued and Ms Greenbury tried to flee, she ran to her neighbours house, but Mr Robinson pursued her and shot her in the back of the head with a shotgun, in front of her neighbour. He then calmly returned to his car and drove away.

This was the act of a violent man, with a deep sense of entilement, he placed more value on his pride and hurt than on another person's life. As Phil Clearly (a football identity and anti domestic violence campaigner, whose sister was killed by an ex-boyfriend in 1987) stated Mr Robinson was a "mongrel, a misogynist, a rapist and a woman killer."

With current sentencing practices in Victoria this sentence would be comparatively harsh compared to other similar crimes, so if I was emotionally attached to the case, I daresay I would be happy with the sentence to.

However, this is where the story gets interesting and one must pose the question whether this sentence truly was "Justice for Tracey." I would say no, and that is because Mr Robinson has a history of significant violent and sexual offences, and if justice had truly been served previously, I strongly believe Ms Greenbury would still be alive today, and as I will discuss shortly others also would not have had their lives destoryed by Mr Robinson either.

Ms Greenbury was not the first ex-girlfriend Mr Robinson had murdered in cold blood. In 1968 Mr Robinson was sentenced to death for the stabbing murder of his 17-year-old ex-girlfriend, Valerie Dunn, she had refused to go out with him again. Mr Robinson also seriously injured Ms Dunn's current boyfriend.

Mr Robinson death sentenced was commuted to 30 years imprisonment, he should not have been released until 1998. Instead he was released after serving only 15 years imprisonment. I do not believe in the death sentence, but obviously Mr Robinson was released from prison too early and before he was rehabilitated. This is where the justice system failed Tracey Greenbury, it released her murderer from prison half way through a 30 year jail term for the murder of a previous ex-girlfriend, before he was rehabilitated.

Unsurprisingly, Ms Greenbury, was not the only one victim of Mr Robinson after his release from prison. After his release from prison he married, he was later convicted and received a 5 year jail sentence for the repeated sexual abuse of one of his step children from this relationship. Mr Robinson raped and sexually assaulted his step daughter for a period of 5 years from the age she was 13, until she left home at age 18. His victim in this case stated that she was freightened of reporting the abuse because she was aware her step father had been in jail for murder. When sentencing Mr Robinson on these charges the judge stated that he accepted the victim's psychological problems "sleepless- ness, fear, drug and alcohol abuse, depression and even thoughts of suicide" were the result of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her step father.

Mr Robinson again demonstrated a gross sense of entitlement and ownership towards his victim and that he was willing to use violence and intimidation to get his way. Despite the criminal justice system again being made aware of this, it again failed to adequately protect the community from Mr Robinson.

It should be noted that these offences occured in the 1980s and he was convicted and sentenced for them in 1995. Both during the period that he should have been serving his sentence for the murder of Valerie Dunn.

When sentencing him last Friday, Justice Simon Whelan observed: ''Two women who have been in a relationship with you have paid for annoying you in the context of that relationship with their lives.'' He further commented that there was ''a pressing need to permanently protect the community'' from such a man.

Leigh Robinson received the sentence he deserved, but I find it hard to believe justice has been served, because they Justice System had already failed the victim and the wider community and if it had not, then others would not have needed to suffer at the hands of this man.

And We Have Blog-Off

What can you expect from this blog? I'm not really sure how to answer that question, because I'm really not sure what I'm going to want to blog about.

Now that question has remained unanswered, I shall tell you a bit about myself. I'm 27 years old; I live and work in Melbourne, Australia with my partner and our almost 2-year-old daughter. I have a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Criminology and Psychology with Honours in Criminology. I'm currently working for a department of the state government, and trying to figure out where I want to go with my career for the rest of my life.

Many people would probably use the term "hippy freaks" to describe us given some of the practices we adopt and choices we have made. For one, our daughter was born at home, but wait it gets even more hippy freak than that, she was freebirthed (there were no medical professional present at our daughter's birth).

We babywear. Up until about a month ago, we used a range of slings and carriers to carry our daughter, instead of using a pram. Now our daughter is almost 2, and too heavy to carry in the slings for extended periods we use a pram more often. We also use cloth nappies and face washers instead of disposable nappies and baby wipes.

Our daughter is still breastfed, she will be until she decides that she no longer wants to. This is rather confronting for some people, but rest assured the World Health Organisation recommends that babies are exclusively breastfeed for the first 6 months of their life, and continue to be breastfed until at least the age of 2.

We attachment parent. There's probably a blog post in what I mean by that term and who knows, one day I might actually write one. In short in means we co-sleep, our daughter sleeps in our bed with us. We treat our child as we treat each other, we don't hit or "smack" her because we wouldn't hit each other, we talk to her about her feelings when she is upset, we explain to her why she shouldn't hit/push/kick/pinch others instead of yelling at her or hitting her, (what a radical notion we don't use violence to teach her not to be violent). We make ourselves available to her and treat her as an equal.

We have decided to homeschool our daughter, further we have decided to undertake a form of homeschooling termed unschooling because there is no set curriculum, you take your lead from your child about what they want to learn about on a particular day. Children are by nature, curious and inquisitive and want to learn about the world around them, we believe that this is something that should be cherished and nurtured. We do not believe the education system in Australia places any/enough value on this as it deems what children should be interested in learning and what they need to learn at particular times and ages (apparently I needed to learn trigonometry for 5 years in high school and yet have not used it once since I left school).

So back to the original question about what to expect from this blog, well there will be some posts about the above topics, there will be some posts about my family and our adventures because these two funky women are my life. There will be posts about some current affairs and political issues; I've already got a blog post in mind about a court case that was resolved on Friday. Much to my partner's distaste there might even be the odd post related to sports, because I have been known to get rather passionate about my football (only 13 days until the start of the NAB Cup, Essendon vs. West Coast).

So there you have it, a bit about me, and what you can expected from this blog. Hope you enjoy it.