Public Health – Page 17 – Population Matters-USA

Envision the Ideal Baby Food

Imagine a food that is ideal nutritionally, is inexpensive and prevents many diseases. Wouldnâ€™t you expect such a product to be used universally? Guess again!

Breast milk is all of the above, and more. Sadly, only one child in seven born in the USA is given just breast milk at six months of age, which is what the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends. It is especially sad that one third of all moms never give their babies access to the best possible food.

I had the chance to visit an obstetrical clinic in Egypt. I asked one of the new mothers if she was nursing her baby. â€œOh, yes, we all breastfeed for seven months!â€ she exclaimed. â€œThat is what the Qurâ€™an says we must do. Many women continue to nurse longer.â€

Why donâ€™t mothers in the USA nurse their children, since it is best for themselves and their babies? Many forces act against breastfeeding. Manufacturers market artificial formula intensely to pregnant women and new mothers. When you go down the aisles of a supermarket you see all sorts of formulas and bottles, but little or nothing for breastfeeding. Of course, one of the advantages of breastfeeding is that the new mother doesnâ€™t need to buy anything.

Letâ€™s face it; our society is unfriendly for breastfeeding moms. Many new mothers need to return to work six weeks or less after giving birth. Few workplaces have provision for women to pump their breasts, let alone for the baby to be nearby so he can nurse. Until society becomes nursing-friendly, many babies can only get six weeks of this ideal food. Fortunately, the first month of nursing is the most important.

Another reason that women are turning away from breastfeeding is that we view breasts as sex objects. Recently a former Durango woman was thrown off an airplane in Vermont for breastfeeding. Even though she was nursing discretely, the flight attendant insisted that she cover her nursing baby with a blanket.

Breast milk has advantages for both baby and mother. The breastfed baby is less likely to get sick from diarrhea or respiratory diseases because he receives immunity from his mother. He is less susceptible to allergic problems such as asthma and eczema. Recent research suggests that he will even be slightly more intelligent than if he had bottle-fed. Nursing lessens his chances of getting serious diseases such as diabetes, lymphoma, certain bowel diseases and one type of arthritis. He is less likely to die of sudden infant death syndrome. Finally, his chances of obesity are much less if he nurses.

A healthy baby is wonderful here, but critical in poorer countries where five million children die of infectious diseases annually. Couples will not choose to have smaller families until they can be relatively sure that their children will live until adulthood. Paradoxically, survival of children is important for slowing population growth.

Advantages to the mom are also significant. Breastfeeding diminishes her risk of anemia since nursing decreases postpartum blood loss. Women who have breastfed their babies are less likely to develop breast, ovarian and uterine cancers. Losing â€œbaby fatâ€ is easier for a nursing woman, making obesity less likely.

The psychological advantages of breastfeeding are very significant. Breastfeeding promotes intimacy between mother and infant. This is partly because the babyâ€™s suckling releases oxytocin, the â€œhormone of love.â€ Oxytocin helps bond the mother to her baby.

Other hormonal effects of nursing are also important. Another hormone, prolactin, stimulates the breasts to make milk. It also allows the new motherâ€™s ovaries to rest, making her much less fertile while nursing. This natural family planning has helped to regulate fertility for millennia. Worldwide, breastfeeding is the most widely used temporary contraceptive method.

This relative infertility has been studied extensively and found to rival the effectiveness of modern contraceptive methods. Named LAM (for Lactational Amenorrhea Method), it is 98 % effective if the mom meets three requirements. The baby must be breastfed almost exclusively, be less than six months old, and the mother must not have resumed menstruation.

Breastfeeding is good for the environment, too. There are no cans or bottles to dispose of, and fossil fuels are not needed to ship artificial formula long distances. No methane-emitting cows need be milked as to make artificial formulas.

For years I have said that inferior products have supplanted two superior onesâ€”drinking water and breast milk. Now industry is marketing water extensively. I hope that breast milk will regain its rightful place in human nutrition.

Â© Richard Grossman MD, 2007

[The article above may be copied or published but must remain intact, with attribution to the author. I also request that the words â€œFirst published in the Durango Heraldâ€ accompany any publication. For more information, please write the author at: richard@population-matters.org.]

Haunted in India

The image of Varanasi that stays with me is not the chanting and bell ringing while seven saffron-robed priests gesture with incense and flames. It is not the nine clouds of smoke as bodies are cremated on the steps beside the Mother Ganges. It is not the press of dense crowds of people-whom I found to be more comfortable than those in New York City. I am haunted by the lepers.

This is written on a long-awaited trip to India. My invitation came over 40 years ago with a chance meeting with a man from this country. I told him that I was going to medical school because of concern about overpopulation. He responded “Come to India, we need you.”

Varanasi is the heart of Hindu India. Pilgrims have visited there for centuries because of the cleansing water of the Ganges. Believers go there to die, since it is most auspicious to have your soul released by cremation beside this holy river. Perhaps you have seen images of this in glossy magazines. But the pictures leave out an important part of Varanasi.

India’s population more than quadrupled during the twentieth century. Yet during this same period the number of children a woman bears during her lifetime has halved, from 6 to 3. This seeming paradox occurred because of falling infant mortality. In the past, a huge proportion of children died before adulthood. Although medical care has helped, the most important factors for this welcome decline in childhood mortality have been improved nutrition and hygiene.

As a medical student I was curious about Hansen disease, as this scourge is now called. The bacterium that causes it lives in amazing harmony with human nerves, but gradually causes them to fail. Injuries are common because affected people cannot feel pain. Worse, at night rats nibble unprotected fingers and toes.

Cure of the infection is possible, but prolonged and expensive. Often treatment is limited to little more than bandaging and protection of the affected part. Tradition has forced people with Hansen disease to live separate from the rest of society. There is still a strong emotional reaction to the word “leper” even though most people in the USA have never seen one. Perhaps Hansen disease was the first use of quarantine, although the disease isn’t very contagious. What I didn’t learn in medical school is that it is very much a disease of poverty and malnutrition. As proof, well-nourished health workers seldom contract the disease even with constant exposure.

Leprosy still thrives in India because of poverty. Malnutrition is too common here, although less than a century ago. This month the India Times reported the sad results of a national health survey. Only a quarter of newborn babies are given the breast within an hour of birth. This lessens their chances of successful breastfeeding, which could substantially reduce infant mortality. Half of all children under 3 years are underweight, and one in five is stunted by lack of food. Three quarters are anemic, due to parasites or iron deficiency. Another article pointed out that girls are more likely to be starved than boys. In contrast, there are many rich people in India. One woman in seven is overweight. This is a country of contrasts.

To quantify this huge gulf between rich and poor, compare the income of the richest fifth of the world’s people with the poorest fifth. Worldwide this ratio in 1960 was 30 to one. Now it is more than 80 to one. The rich are getting richer-often at the expense of the poor.

Why should we care that this chasm is widening? There are two reasons. First is altruistic-it is sad to have people suffer from poverty. The other is that poverty threatens the security of rich people. Indeed, some feel that the real reason for terrorism against the USA is economic.

The image that sticks with me is of people lining our path to the Ganges. Squatting with quiet, upturned stolid faces, they held empty begging bowls with mutilated hands.

Part of my personal attempt to narrow the chasm between poor and rich has been to help support children in developing countries. For the first 35 years we sponsored a series of boys in Columbia. Filimina Mallik, our current child, lives in a remote part of India, too far from our tour. I believe that she is healthier and better educated for the small donation we make each month through Plan USA.