Breastfeeding: More Than Science Can Capture

By Elizabeth Foss
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 8/1/02)

Last week, several major news organizations reported that, according to a study published in the British medical journal Lancet, a woman’s risk for breast cancer decreased by about 4.3 percent for every twelve months she breast-fed. The risk went down 7 percent more for every child born. Furthermore, news reports reminded the public, "along with the profound emotional benefits for mothers, breastfeeding has been shown to reduce the risk of ovarian cancer, help the uterus to contract after delivery and help women to regain their shape."

My friend Michele sent me the article and, together, we researched further reports. I found the study intriguing and affirming. Women in developing countries who have more children and who breastfeed their children for years instead weeks or months have much lower incidences of breast cancer. I had suspected this link for a few years.

Four years ago, after the Mass celebrating the fortieth anniversary of La Leche League, I had the privilege of talking with several of the League’s founders. I was carrying my fourth breastfed baby in a sling. By that time, I had been nursing or pregnant or both for eight years. I had completely embraced attachment parenting and I was tired. I had heard the voices of the culture telling me that all this birthing and nursing and carrying was hard on my body. I wondered if the voices had a point.

I sat and talked with the founders, women now well into their 60s and 70s, and it dawned on me that the popular culture might be wrong. These women had all raised large families and breastfed for long periods of time. With the exception of Edwina Froelich, they had between seven and ten children each. Mrs. Froelich had her first child at 36, and went on to have two more, still a big family by today’s standards. Not only did these women survive extended childbearing and breastfeeding and attachment parenting, they thrived. They were all still vibrant, healthy, happy, active women 40 years later.

While the British study confirmed what I began to suspect at that conference — that when we use our bodies as God intended and live according to natural law, there are real physical and emotional health benefits — the researchers missed the point. They acknowledge that we must encourage woman to breastfeed longer, but they believe that they can only realistically hope for a little longer and we certainly can’t expect them to have more children. They missed the lifestyle aspect of this kind of mothering. Lead researcher Valerie Beral said that the study couldn’t offer any recommendations because "the practical implications are very complex." Both Beral and her colleague, Eugenia Calle "agreed it was unrealistic to think Western women would revert to a lifestyle from two centuries ago."

As I read, I was beginning to feel indignant. The next few quotes put me over the edge:

"Scientists behind the research accept that it is ‘completely unrealistic’ for today's working women to mirror mothers in rural Africa, who typically have six or seven children and breastfeed each for up to two years." And, Beral said, "Prolonged breastfeeding and having lots of children pushes breast cancer rates down. It is completely unrealistic to think that there is a direct preventative message in that for women in the developed world today. We will have to find out how this happens and ask ourselves if there is a way of mimicking these effects in a way that is acceptable."

Wait a minute! Before we dump millions of dollars into discovering a magic bullet to mimic the effects of extended childbearing and breastfeeding in mothers, let’s look at the fact that some women live "the real deal." Let’s consider supporting women who are raising large families and nursing babies into toddlerhood. And let’s consider the possibility that there is more to this "unacceptable" practice than mere physiology.

After I finish this column, I will nurse my toddler to sleep. Then, I will turn my attention to the edits of my book. They were sent to me by a copy editor, who is also a widely published author and the mother of three children who have been breastfed well beyond a year. When the edits are complete, I’ll send them to my publisher, the mother of five young sons. We are all mothers at home. We all believe in big families. And, if pressed, we all admit to being working mothers. It’s a moniker that doesn’t really fit well because our society associates "working mother" with the woman who leaves her children with a caregiver and goes out into the big world for more hours a day than she is awake at home. It is, however, a name that fits us as well.

We have acknowledged that God has endowed us with the great gift of fertility, the desire and the grace to nurture, and the creative and organizational abilities that drive our professional work. We are thoroughly modern working women who are unwilling to turn the other way when confronted with God’s design for women and their families. We see that it is the very complexity of this intricate dance that enhances both our personal and professional lives. This is a lifestyle that is largely unrecognized and we often have to work hard at living the best of both worlds. Interestingly, we are all women of faith. And we are not alone.

We are in the company of bestselling authors like Kimberly Hahn, Martha Sears and Linda Eyre and singer-songwriter Marie Bellet, all of whom have six or more children. And of course, we are in the company of the founders of La Leche League, who launched the League at a parish picnic and grew an international organization while nursing babies and meeting the needs of their own large families. The concerns of women working at home are rarely addressed in the mainstream press.

We are also in the company of talented women who have chosen to put careers on hold entirely while they raise their children. They are intelligent women who bring considerable talent and thought to their jobs as mothers at home. They serve their churches and their communities while they mother their children. They understand that childhood is a season and it’s a season that they intend to cherish in its entirety. These women know that they can have it all; they just don’t have it all at once.

I am more than annoyed at inferences made by the researchers that women who choose extended childbearing and extended breastfeeding are somehow less educated or less civilized than the rest of the modern Western world. Quite the contrary. These are thoughtful woman. These are fully recollected women. They find inspiration for their work in the faces of their children and they find strength to meet the call of their vocations in the grace of heaven. They don’t need scientists to find a way to mimic the effects of breastfeeding and childbearing — they know there’s more to it than the mere physiology. It’s more than science can ever hope to capture. Much, much more.

Foss is a freelance writer from Northern Virginia.

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