Breastfeeding is a cultural fact as well as natural, something complex, which in our society is not the majority as nature provides. The epidemic of children who cannot be breastfed is not for real medical reasons, but for social, advertising, historical reasons but also for the passivity of the health system to what is a matter of public health.
If you pass to consider artificial milk as a medicine there would be advantages, even if they were not decisive, that would help increase breastfeeding rates and give greater guarantees on the product with which children who do not receive milk from their mothers are fed.
Holding doctors responsible for the recommendation of artificial milk
The milk being a written recommendation of the doctor, although, again, free purchase, would be forced to the breastfeeding update and the inclusion of breastfeeding experts in the health system it became necessary, since any medical recommendation must be demonstrated as necessary and also implies a medical recognition of your real need. And mothers would really be helped so they could breastfeed if doctors had to take responsibility when they indicated weaning.
There is a degree with a university level in the depth of knowledge required and recognized worldwide, even some countries begin to include these professionals, the International Breastfeeding Consultants, in their health systems.
While medical consultations do not have professionals with real, updated and practical knowledge about breastfeeding, we will continue to find that thousands and thousands of mothers, who wanted to breastfeed, are discouraged from doing so with excuses such as percentile drops, alleged hypolacties, medication compatible or postpartum depression. We will still have no real help to solve some cracks, a frenulum, a breastfeeding crisis, a need for temporary supplement or poor posture.
But now doctors have no responsibility when a mother stops breastfeeding It also does not help you and does not give you reliable and real information too many times. Faced with the slightest problem, the solution is weaning.
The trust in doctors, deeply rooted, ends with many lactations that were recoverable. Not to add when, to make matters worse, health workers sometimes make comments against breastfeeding, for example, urging women to wean a year, denying them that breastfeeding after the introduction of complementary feeding is important for the health of their sons.
And of course, Information on health problems associated with artificial breastfeeding shines by its absence and cases are still detected in which even gifts, samples or a specific brand are recommended, when all artificial milks are, in principle and saving those that are formulated for specific problems, are the same. When there are still guidelines for not breastfeeding on demand or introducing industrial cereals with artificial milk in perfectly breastfed children.
But I fear, that in reality, that would also bring a congestion of pediatric services, because professional experts with specialized training in breastfeeding are included in the health system is something that will take a long time. And most seriously, an external pressure from the medical staff, on women who are, without a doubt, the owners of their own bodies and those who must decide whether or not they want to breastfeed. Leaving this part of childcare in the hands of medicine is something that causes me a lot of rejection, despite the real benefits of consider artificial milk a medicine.
The truth is that it is such a complex issue that, in the end, what you should weigh is the interest of families and especially of babies. We will go to it on the next topic.
Should artificial milk be considered as a medicine?
In my opinion, for safety, for health, for rights and even for economy, I see advantages in the consideration of artificial milk as a medicine but also inconvenient.
If any natural body function is not possible for medical reasons, its cure or its treatment, and more when it comes to something as vital as giving a baby his livelihood, should be considered as a medical cause.
If it is not, better mechanisms would also be enabled to help these mothers. If it is, I think they have the right to be helped by the health system, and, above all, I think that babies deserve to have the control of this product as great as possible and that only the consider artificial milk as a medicine.
Perhaps the conclusion cannot be closed, but it would end up indicating that the controls, the analyzes and the investigations, as well as the measures of real promotion of the breastfeeding, must be much greater than the ones that currently exist.
I would still expand on the economic consequences for families and in what are the real controls that have the producing cows, the components of the artificial milk that appear in the boats and their origin, as well as the form of production, packaging and commercialization, which, I repeat, I consider clearly insufficient and do not provide all the guarantees that I, as a mother , I consider a product of such importance in child health enforceable, since the untreated baby receives for six months, and exclusively, its nutrition from an industrial product.
As we see, the issue of consider or not artificial milk as a medicine is very complex and it is not possible to take a unique position, since breastfeeding children is something in which there are many economic interests and many emotions to the surface. The debate, so far, has been very enriching, so I encourage you to keep your opinion.
