Breast Milk to Share, Breast Milk Not to Steal
Photo by Flickr user No Middle Name, Gareth Jones
Like many, I was listening to NPR’s Morning Edition this morning when a story titled “Moms Who Can’t Nurse Find Milk Donors Online” came on. The headline pretty well summarizes the content of the report: Human mothers who know breast milk is what’s best for their infants but who can’t nurse (not “don’t want to”–literally can’t) and for whom breast-milk banks are exorbitantly expensive have turned elsewhere–their fellow mothers, women who are producing more breast milk than their own babies need and who are lovingly offering it to the mothers and babies who need it.
The story about a truck driver and a mother meeting up at a rest stop, partway between their homes several hundred miles apart, so that the former could deliver a cooler of his wife’s extra milk to a woman who needed it–that choked me up a little. Stories like these, about people going out of their way to help other people, not because they’re getting anything out of the deal, but simply because they have something that other people need–stories like these fill my heart.
But.
The story that followed this one–“Some Baby Formulas May Cause Faster Weight Gain”–was about something different, something far less loving, something far less kind, even if most listeners (and the reporter and producer themselves) didn’t realize it. The story, again clear from the headline, reports on some of the differences between some kinds of infant formula and others, given that for various reasons, many infants are indeed still fed formula, in lieu of or in supplement or follow-up to breast milk. The difference focused on is that one type of formula results in faster, greater weight gain–too much weight gain:
The problem is formula-fed babies often gain too much weight. And, unfortunately, Stettler says, that trend can continue throughout life.
“There’s more and more evidence that infants who gain weight rapidly during the first four months or year of life are at much greater risk of” becoming overweight or obese, he says.
Stettler points to studies both in the U.S. and Europe that show rapid weight gain, including a study at his hospital, which showed infants who experienced rapid weight gain during the first four months of life were five times more likely to be obese by age 20.
The formula that causes that greater-than-normal weight gain is based on what? Cow’s milk. Another researcher interviewed notes, “There’s something in cow-milk formula, or something lacking in cow-milk formula, that’s resulting in babies overfeeding.” The researcher briefly hypothesizes about what could be the cause, but one possibility seems glaringly obvious (though no one in the report mentioned it): Like human milk is meant for baby humans, a cow’s milk is meant for baby cows. And this is just speculation, of course, but have you seen the size of baby and adult cows?
What I wish, so much, is that someone in stories like these would make the connection. We have one story about generosity and kindness and love, about kinship and cooperation and sharing among mothers. And then we have another story immediately following where the story beneath the story, the one we don’t think about, even though the signs are right under our noses–and apparently, in our babies’ fat–is one of completely opposite acts and ideas, one in which human mothers are putting other mothers through the worst possible experience for a mother. How many women experience the wonder of seeing and feeling their bodies produce food for their babies–only for those babies, not constantly throughout their adult years–and yet never stop to think that cows (and goats and other animals) produce milk for the exact same reason?
Photo by Marji Beach: Summer & Freedom, dairy-industry discards rescued from slaughter; click on photo for related post
How many human mothers never realize that they are able to buy milk (and milk-based formulas) at the grocery store only because countless other mothers are out there living in hell? Each year, they are forcibly impregnated, and then like all mothers, they feel that young one growing inside over the months; they communicate with that baby; they bond with that baby; they anticipate his or her arrival; they go through the pain of birth; and they see, for a moment, that beautiful, fragile young child whom they love instantly just like any mother–but only for a moment because a human is there, to tear that baby away, despite the baby’s frantic cries and attempts to rush back to his or her mother, despite the exhausted, desperate mother’s terrified bellows at seeing her baby dragged or carted away.
She’ll never see that baby again, just like she’ll never see the one next year or the year after that. While she mourns and while cold machines or human hands tug at her teats , stealing her baby’s milk, most of her and her companions’ babies are being dragged–literally–to the slaughterhouse floor to become skinned and chopped into veal and leather; they were just our tools to get their mothers’ milk flowing, and now they are now just trash or leftovers, off of whom to make a couple extra bucks. Some of the female babies will be enslaved into the same fate as their mothers–they too will be exploited and tormented as mothers-as-machines. All, like their mothers, will eventually end up hanging upside down, their blood draining out, on the kill floor–it’s just a matter of when. And it all happens, year after heartbreaking year, for one reason: dairy. It happens for a so-called food that is more unnatural for humans to consume than just about anything else we do consume. It happens for a so-called food that we don’t need (note: that cow’s milk is a necessary or best, most ideal source of calcium, for example, is a myth perpetuated by the dairy industry), that most of our bodies aren’t even designed to properly digest, but that those newborn baby cows did need.
Mothers are capable of doing incredible things for other mothers. Mothers out there, please extend that kinship and understanding to all mothers, to cows and goats and sheep and pigs and chickens and turkeys. Mothers, don’t participate in a system that reduces mothers to baby- and milk-producing machines, that torments them as a matter of standard practice, that rips away and kills their babies, over and over again, all for greed, all for something we don’t need. It’s not even just milk. The whole system of raising and killing animals for food is based on treating mothers like machines, on doing the most unspeakable things to mothers and their young.
Mothers, for other mothers, for other babies, for other families, please go vegan.
See also Marji’s powerful post “A Cow’s Milk Is Not Yours to Take.”
Stephanie Ernst
Marji
Kelly G.
Deb
Mary Martin
Stephanie, I’ve been “lurking” at this blog for a long time now. You have articulated the case for avoiding dairy far more beautifully than I could. I breasfed both of my children, and I can’t even fathom the pain of having either child ripped from me so someone could steal my milk. I could never do that to another mother. Putting myself in her place makes the occasional cheese or ice cream cravings history!
It was during the early days of nursing our babe that I switched from vegetarian to vegan, and have stayed vegan since. For whatever reason, while I generally understood where milk came from, it wasn’t until I was making it myself that I finally realized what this truly meant for the cows.
I blogged about it at the time in a post called For The Moms. I think many just think giving milk is what cows do! I too am suprised people, and especially nursing mamas, don’t make this connection.
Thanks to your post, Stephanie, I read both NPR stories as well as all the comments beneath them. No NPR listener said anything in defense of the “mother” cows. Makes me want to weigh in on that site and provide this link, so that’s just what I’m going to do….
Hi Olivia – As always I was anxious to read what you had to say to break the silence on the forgotten dairy cows and calves… I looked at all the comments on both articles several times and couldn’t find your response. It would be hard to believe that they would censor anything you said. I know you always have a respectful, patient and gentle way of getting the message out. I don’t know… Could it be that this truth is just too much for them to handle? Seems like there should just be a few mentions of the ugly side of the industry… Yet nothing. (?)
Thanks for this post Stephanie – As always you’re insight and ability to connect it all adds further clarity to the discussion and helps expose this hideous institution.
I hope that any mother opting for this artificial food for their baby, if not swayed by the unfairness to other mothers, might be concerned about the dozens of chemicals and drugs in cow’s milk. Just yesterday, the FDA filed suit against the industry for just these concerns. The New York Times picked up on the story: http://alturl.com/ym3ng
“It said it would test for about two dozen antibiotics beyond the six that are typically tested for. The testing would also look for a painkiller and anti-inflammatory drug popular on dairy farms, called flunixin, which often shows up in the slaughterhouse testing”.
It really is an eye opener to see how many drugs “food animals” are on! Sadder still are the painkillers “popular” on dairy farms… So much for “humane” cow’s milk.
Hmmm. After I wrote my comment and clicked “send,” I then clicked on the link on my name, which opened my profile. It said that I hadn’t honored the terms of the website, or something like that. I have no idea what I did “wrong” and I certainly didn’t intentionally disobey anyone!
But here is what I wrote (glad I saved a copy): Since no one has asked whether it is moral to steal babies and their milk from mothers in order to provide other mothers’ babies with milk, I thought I’d mention that the connection between those mothers and babies can be found here: http://challengeoppression.com/2011/01/24/breast-milk-to-share-breast-milk-not-to-steal
If anyone here would like to register for an NPR account, you’re welcome to write something similar to what I tried to post. If NPR doesn’t accept links to online stories, maybe they would accept the name of the challengeoppression.com website and the name of the article as long as it isn’t in the form of a link?
Thanks for searching, Bea; sorry you came up empty. Also appreciate the additional info you supplied.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 1:52:51 AM
Hi Olivia… No I don’t think it was the issue of providing a link – It took mine fine. I used a portion of what you said – And couldn’t help myself but elaborated a bit as well. It would be rewarding if just one or two of the caring mothers would think for a moment what other less able mothers endure. We can only hope.
Thanks for the motivation to speak up.
At first I couldn’t find your comment, because I was searching under the second NPR story (on formulas) instead of the first (on milk donors). So then I went to the first one, and there it was, beautifully stated. I wish there were a way for everyone who already commented on the story in recent days to see what you wrote, Bea. Too bad NPR has no option for us to be notified of all new comments…. Anyway, even if just one receptive person reads your compassionate words and is changed by them, your effort was worthwhile. Appreciate you!
Thanks Olivia, I’m always thinking (and hoping) that this is part of the beauty of the internet… The words we all write have the potential of reaching someone in the future. You’re right! Knowledge is power and getting it out there is never a waste. :)
> ” …they were just our tools to get their mothers’ milk flowing, and now they are now just trash or leftovers, off of whom to make a couple extra bucks.”
The commodification of living individuals is at the heart of the crisis. Human mothers fail to recognize their fellow mothers because most people view themselves as separated by species. They only identify with other mothers in the human species and sometimes only if those mothers are of the same nationality or social class. Going to a farm to see the heartbreaking separation of calf from mother is the easiest way to gain an immediate understanding of the tragedy. Perhaps your words will have a similar effect to help some people see a part of themselves in cows and calves and to open up the natural feelings of connectedness they have been taught to tamp down.
We all breathe the same air. We all share the same earth. Our culture can only change when more of us recognize that the pain and distress of all living individuals is also our own pain.