Ok, so I haven't posted for ages, (pesky old real life getting in the way!) and this is a bit of a place holder. I intend to expand on it.
I've been reading the Fearless Formula Feeder recently - to try to understand the other side. Half the time I roll my eyes at misunderstandings of what's actually being said by lactavists (as I'm sure she would.at our interpretations of her words!) But one thing that struck me is the way we think about statistics.
We KNOW that 'only' around 2% of people cannot breastfeed. This is not a miniscule number. 1 in 50. The chances are HUGE that at least one formula feeding woman you know had a problem that LITERALLY meant she couldn't breastfeed. Now add in the problems that, yes, may have been solvable with support and a lot of effort - but here's the kicker. Yes, breastfeeding is normal, healthy, ideal and worth it once difficulties are conquered. But so is learning to bake your own bread, run marathons, and a huge number of other things - and no one individual has the time, energy or inclination to do ALL of these things.
From wiki:
Red hair occurs naturally on approximately 1–2% of the human population
Around 2-3% of people self-identify as homosexual.
Around 2% of people have green eyes.
Red hair is the obvious one - you almost certainly know of people with red hair, because it's a popular hair dye choice. You ALSO almost certainly know people with naturally red hair.
It's not common, but 2% isn't actually that rare.
Just bear it in mind.
I have 157 friends on Facebook. At least 2 of them have naturally red hair. At least 1 of them is openly homosexual. (Probably more in both cases, those are the ones I could think of off the top of my head.) I don't know the details of all of the formula feeders stories - but I do know that percentage wise, the chances are good that AT LEAST one of them is in the 2% who couldn't have breastfed no matter what the circumstances.
Be kind. Be aware. Yes, breastfeeding is great if you can do it, and yes, any one individual is MORE LIKELY to be in the 98% who can. But 2% is not a small number of individuals.
Just stumbled upon this from my Google alerts, and want to say thank you. This was a great explanation of why the 2-5% statistic is nothing to smirk about.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm sorry if my posts are cringe-worthy. I roll my eyes at myself a lot, too, so I'm not too surprised by that assessment. ;)
Eeek! As I said - I intend to edit this. (And will link to your Facebook page when I do so, if that's ok.) Wasn't really expecting anyone to read it yet. To be clear, it's actually not YOU who makes the 'lactivists do/think/are this' posts - but your links/guest posters and some of your commentators.
DeleteAnd, as I say, I know that it's very easy to read a comment you disagree with as literal, and one you agree with as a sort of shorthand for what you actually mean. As in 'lactavists are trying to you to feel guilty' = 'lactivists are primarily concerned with deliberately hurting your feelings' (false, obviously), rather than 'lactivists do not consider your feelings of guilt as important as the message they want to convey' (true). Or 'formula fed babies are less healthy than breastfeed babies' = 'every individual formula fed baby is less healthy than every breastfed one' (false, obviously) rather than 'statistically, a formula fed baby has a slightly increased chance of having various health issues' (true).