This Week's Shannonigans: Bloomberg's Breast is Best
Created by Shannon Sutherland 
Here's Mayor Mike scolding Kermit the Frog because his mom never breastfed him. Never mind that amphibians don't breastfeed their young, Kermit's mom had no idea how to raise a frog and should have listened to a human man who has nothing better to do with his time because he is worth 22 billion and spends his time acting like the random old lady on the street who screams at you for not wearing a hat and scarf in spring.
Anyway, back to humans. Since women don't already have enough people telling them what to do with their bodies and new moms don't have enough strangers judging their parenting choices, New York City Mayor Bloomberg has decided to help out and lock up the formula in hospitals and only give it to women who need it for medical reasons...And before each bottle is given, new moms will be given a talk about how breastfeeding is better than formula.
When I first heard this I started laughing because New York City hospitals are run with about as much organization as a fast food restaurant located next to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting. All the nurses run around like chickens with their heads cut off because the hospitals are horribly understaffed and everyone is so afraid of lawsuits they never give you straight answers to your questions.
I am a New York City mom who really wanted to breastfeed. I gave birth at New York Presbyterian Hospital which is supposedly one of the best hospitals in the world. I don't want to bore you with my sob story but I spent three days at this hospital and whenever I asked where a lactation consultant was I was told she was on her way. It was like Waiting for Godot. On the third day, I decided I needed help breastfeeding but wasn't going to get it at a hospital so complained and was met with, "Well, what do you expect? You gave birth on a Friday afternoon." Oh excuse me.... next time I have a baby I will make sure it doesn't get in the way of the hospital staff's ability to get drunk and dance to Katy Perry's "TGIF."
So, after five days of trying to teach myself to breastfeed and my daughter not gaining weight, I decided to be a horrible mom and feed my child by giving her formula.
Many moms like me want to breastfeed but face tons of obstacles. I used to think that it was because most moms don't get paid maternity leave, never get enough education on the subject, and it's so painful I would rather give birth to my daughter every day than breast feed every day for 6 months. But I was wrong. Women don't continue to breastfeed because the high prices of formula aren't restrictive enough. We need the formula to be looked away and hidden like it's candy so women who can't breastfeed aren't tempted to do something dumb like feed their screaming children.
So, my solution is this. Since breast feeding is so important to Mayor Mike Bloomberg, I think that if a New York City mom experiences trouble breastfeeding the hospital should shine a huge boob signal in the sky. Then superhero Boobman Bloomberg can hop in his Boob Mobile and save NYC moms from themselves and breastfeed their babies. Then no one would be tempted to use formula, because we would have Boobman Bloomberg to reastfeed our babies.
And that's been this week's Shannonigans!
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6 comments
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Sunday, August 05, 2012 posted by The Mamafesto I think you might appreciate this post on wrote on the topic: http://themamafesto.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/latch-on-latch-off/
A rep from NYC's dept of health actually commented on it, in hopes of clarifying some misnomers (I guess they on't actually "lock" the formula up), but regardless, instead of making formula harder to obtain, why not find ways to be proactive about promoting bf-ing? sigh. - Comment Link
Saturday, August 04, 2012 posted by Nancy Breastfeeding was the hardest thing I've ever done and because I didn't know what I was doing, the most painful. It took me six weeks to be able to feed her w/o any discomfort because I got started with it incorrectly. It is not instinctual for people and some are lucky enough to be able to do it easily right away. In my case, the LLL consultant had no idea what I was doing wrong, but my hospital consultant did and she had the knowledge. And I was lucky enough to be able to stay extra days in the hospital. If I had had to go straight home, I would have surely given up. Many of my friends were not able to do it either, for various reasons. Because multiple generations tend not to live under the same roof nowadays, this knowledge does not get handed down. Oh, and yeah, my kid had her first cold when she was a month old! Let's focus on the end goal here: a healthy, well-fed kid, either by boob or bottle.
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Saturday, August 04, 2012 posted by Beth Can he do that In one city? It seems it would need to be FDA approved or federally mandated.... Just don't seem like something one small Man could do, new York city or not.
I breast feed my first till nine months when we found out the issue was he was allergice to dairy, well becaus I ate dairy in my diet it was in my breast milk, when eliminated from my diet I had problems, so he was moved to formula. There is no problem with either method of feeding. It's up the th mother and her preference. Sort of like her body her choice. It is what they are ment for & "they" say it is "best" but we have an alternative that works just as well, there's nothing wrong with it. People need to stop brow beating those who chose not to breast feed. Alternatively I was able to donate over 400 ounces of breast milk through so some baby benefited in a Huston hospital somewhere. - Comment Link
Saturday, August 04, 2012 posted by Karen B such a shame that mums that want to breastfeed aren't given the correct support. With the right help at the start and access to support when things don't feel right then more women will be successful at it.
The sentiment behind these actions seem like a good idea but until the support is in place, it just isn't going to work. - Comment Link
Friday, August 03, 2012 posted by Elizabeth Lawrence When I had my first baby, I was completely stunned by the amount of pressure people put on me to breastfeed. I tried, I swear I did, but the lactation consultant's instructions had consisted of "Whump, right on the breast," so I was flying blind. After a week, my doctor told me to stop because the breast milk was aggravating my son's jaundice. I damn near deep throated him, I was so relieved. Even with this medically-approved out, though, I STILL had boob-happy harpies telling me my doctor was wrong and I was a bad mom. You know what? I'd rather feed my baby devil's milk than have a yellow kid. I'll listen to Bloomberg's opinion when he grows a vagina and shoots out a human cannonball.
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Friday, August 03, 2012 posted by Theresa Fraley crap...I grew up watching the muppets in the beginning of their debut. If I would have known kermits mom didn't breast feed I wouldn't have spent so much time looking forward to seeing him. Now I feel as if I wasted my entire youth on a stupid frog, Wait,....do frogs even have nipples?
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