In October 2017 Forbes released an article entitled “Fed Is Best Foundation Says Says WHO Breastfeeding Guidelines Fail To Meet Human Rights Standards"

If your first encounter with the Fed Is Best Foundation was reading the Forbes article, you would probably come away agreeing that the WHO is being negligent and denying babies human rights. ​

So, you might be wondering if their claim is valid. 

Is the UNICEF/WHO focus on breastfeeding rates and the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative putting babies lives at needless risk for the sake of politics?

What follows, is a three part series investigating the choices and policies of both the Fed Is Best Foundation and the Baby Friendly Hospital Innovative, looking at the failings and ethics of both sides.

Part 1 - Discusses who the Fed Is Best Movement are, how they began, who they align with, and what that suggests about their integrity. 

Part 2 - Focuses on what the Fed Is Best Foundation hope to achieve in their negotiations with the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative

And Part 3 - Looks at alternative approaches the Fed Is Best Foundation could take. 

All three cover various problems with the Baby Friendly Hospital Innovative, interspersed through the discussion wherever relevant. 

Finally I've included my first article on the Fed Is Best Foundation (Dehydrated Babies) for further background. 

Last week Forbes released an article entitled “Fed Is Best Foundation Says Says WHO Breastfeeding Guidelines Fail To Meet Human Rights Standards"

Just digest that for a minute because, that’s huge. 

That’s a really massive call.

And if your first encounter with the Fed Is Best Foundation was reading the Forbes article, you would probably come away agreeing that the WHO is being negligent and denying babies human rights. ​

So, you might be wondering if their claim is valid. 

Is the Unicef/WHO focus on breastfeeding rates and the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative putting babies lives at needless risk for the sake of politics?
​

Whenever the fed is best₁ argument flares up; you know the one - as long as the baby gets fed that’s all that matters - somebody on the pro-breastfeeding side of things uses the analogy of feeding your older child nothing but McDonald's to point out the absurdity of fed, being best.

This article is for those people.

There are plenty of people who should be feeling guilty for breastfeeding failure.

But the mothers who are doing the best they can with the information and access they have in a culture that is unsupportive and hostile???

Nope. 
​
That ladies is called gaslighting.

And we women are so used to it, that we didn't even notice. We gaslight each other and ourselves. 

​it's called the Mummy Wars

You'd be forgiven for thinking that the Fed Is Best motto is a well intentioned rally cry created by mothers who were sick of feeling shamed for using formula. Or perhaps you assumed it was a marketing ploy on behalf of the formula companies, a way to inflame the Mummy Wars that they created in the first place. 

But it actually began as a campaign to raise awareness of a condition wherein newborn babies dehydrate, which can cause lifelong complications and brain damage. 

Important right?

Problem is the way they are going about it.

96% of Australian Women want to Breastfeed. 
By three months 35% of them will have partially or completely moved to formula. 
At 5 months - a whole month before public health bodies recommend introducing solid foods,  only 15% of babies are exclusively breastfed. 

So what's going on? 
​
We live in a culture where the odds are stacked against us. 
We live in a culture that is following a recipe for mass breastfeeding failure. 

There are 8 muscles in the tongue alone that all have to work correctly to achieve optimal milk transfer. Added to that, is the muscles of the upper lip, the jaw, the neck. The latch, the positioning of the babies' body, their tongue strength, the size of their mouth, the size of their jaw, their palate shape, their co-ordination and their stage of development. Then there are the mother's nipple length, shape, areola size, breast size, storage capacity, let down speed and intensity, supply. If you have been mixed feeding there is aslo the potenial for baby to be using different motor patterns, the size, shape and flow speed of the nipple can all affect sucess. 

In other words there are about 1000 variables that matter, and what the frenulums look like is only one variable, which may actually have little to no impact on sucessful feeding for that particular baby. 

Even if your baby looks like they have a category 4 tie, they may be able to breastfeed sucessfully because enough other variables are in thier favour. Likewise a category 1 tie, can cause major problems if there are enough other variables that are compounding the issue. ​