Passing on the Importance of Breastfeeding
By Teri Brown
If you ask a group of women why it’s important to be a breastfeeding advocate long after your last baby is weaned, you will get many different answers, but one idea shines through all of them. If you teach the next generation the importance of breastfeeding, they will breastfeed.
This is a subject that Lisa Betancourt, a mother of three from McMinnville, Oregon, is passionate about. “I want my children to know the importance of breastfeeding, because I want them to breastfeed their babies,” she says. “It is the perfect food for babies, and I want my future grandchildren to get the best.”
Brenda Brownlee, mother of three from Beaverton, Oregon, agrees. “I just hope that the next generation will study out the pros and cons of breastfeeding,” she says. “Mothers should make sure their children understand the importance of breastfeeding because not only does breastfeeding allow for a bond to form between a mother and baby that cannot be formed through formula feeding, it also has significant health advantages to both mother and baby.”
Mother: The Perfect Position
Elizabeth Reifsnider, professor and associate dean of research for the University of Texas’ nursing school, feels mothers are in a perfect position to pass on the importance of breastfeeding to the next generation. “Moms have a great deal of influence on what their children think of health practices, what they think is normal or abnormal, what is good to do and what is harmful,” she says. “If moms let their children know the whole time the children are growing up that breastfeeding is the best way to feed babies, they will be more likely to decide to breastfeed or [if boys] to encourage their wives to breastfeed. Boys need to know that breast is best as well as girls. Children should be taught that breastfeeding is the norm—that’s how babies were designed to be fed—and that bottle feeding is only a second choice, to be used if breastfeeding can’t work out.”
Mothers are in a perfect position to pass on the importance of breastfeeding to the next generation.
Dr. Lori Feldman-Winter, associate professor of pediatrics for Children’s Regional Hospital at Cooper in Camden, New Jersey, believes that mothers can help change our culture into one that is more breastfeeding friendly. “The societal norm for infant feeding in the US remains infant formula given by a bottle,” she says. “To shift this cultural norm, more women need to be breastfeeding instead of bottle feeding. There is good evidence that feeding decisions among women begin well before conception and may emerge during adolescence or even before.”
Dr. Feldman-Winter says that in studies looking at attitudes and knowledge about breastfeeding among adolescents, it is clear that breastfeeding is a socially learned behavior. Teens who were breastfed themselves have more positive attitudes about breastfeeding than teens that were not breastfed. Teens who have seen breastfeeding, even if they didn’t breastfeed themselves, are also more positive in their attitudes about breastfeeding.
“One common negative feeling about breastfeeding shared by adolescents is that breastfeeding should be private and not done in public or in the presence of males,” says Dr. Feldman-Winter. “They also [believe] that breastfeeding causes embarrassment. More exposure to breastfeeding, especially in the family context, leads to more positive attitudes and less embarrassment.”
Positively Speaking
How we present our attitudes toward breastfeeding is important. By sharing a positive attitude with those around them, women can do their part to pass breastfeeding on to the next generation. “Mothers should discuss breastfeeding as part of the normal daily routine, as though it is not ‘different’ but rather expected as the optimal form of infant feeding,” says Dr. Feldman-Winter. “A mother can say, ‘Of course I’m breastfeeding her; it is the best way to keep her healthy.’”
Conversations like this give young people the impression that breastfeeding is not only natural but the best way to nourish a baby. It is also important to share breastfeeding know-how with others. “Breastfeeding knowledge is another important component of infant feeding decisions,” says Dr. Feldman-Winter. “Studies have shown that improving knowledge about how to breastfeed leads to more chance of breastfeeding and meeting the intended duration of breastfeeding. If a mother is breastfeeding and shares her experience with her children, they will naturally become more knowledgeable.”
By becoming a breastfeeding advocate even long after your babies have been weaned, you are doing your part to ensure the health of future generations of children.
Top Breastfeeding Tips
- Breastfeed your children, and let them know they were breastfed.
- Tell them why you chose to breastfeed them and the benefits of breastfeeding.
- If an older child (not your own) sees you breastfeeding and looks uncomfortable, tell them casually why you breastfeed your child. (It may be important for you to take the child’s discomfort to heart and be modest about breastfeeding. Older children may be sensitive about these things and even though it is your right to breastfeed, it may do the breastfeeding cause more good to be discreet in situations like that.)
- Talk to any adolescent girls you may know about breastfeeding.
