Formula Fed America

Just saw the trailer for the new documentary "Formula Fed America" and wanted to share.

Formula Fed America trailer

In a lot of ways, it's not new information. We know that breastmilk is better for babies, we know the dangers of formula. But the statement from the first mom you see in the trailer, really struck a chord with me. She states that the argument "I was'nt breastfed and I turned out fine" is not valid. America is not fine.

I just had a conversation with my mom about this - she's the biggest breastfeeding advocate that I know - and she absolutely agreed. Mom wasn't ever breastfed and I always contended that she was fine. She's so healthy. My mom disagrees. I completely forgot about her terrible food allergies. She's struggled her whole life with food related problems. How could I have forgotten?

Sure, she's fine. But she doesn't have perfect health. Would a year of breastmilk have changed that? Maybe, maybe not. Since breastfeeding decreases the chance your child will have food allergies, I think the probability is pretty good that it would have at the very least lessened the severity of her allergies.

Another interesting fact that I didn't know is found on the Formula Fed America website.

"While commercial infant formulas are commonly perceived to be the medically recommended second choice infant food after breastfeeding, the World Health Organization (WHO) states: "The second choice is the mother's own milk expressed and given to the infant in some way. The third choice is the milk of another human mother. The fourth and last choice is artificial baby milk."

As I've said before, this is not my way of making people who were not breastfed feel bad or mom's who didn't (or couldn't) breastfeed feel guilty.

But if we don't change the way that we view breastfeeding in this country, nothing is going to change.

The WHO recommends breastfeeding for a minimum of 2 years and yet in this country, less than 20% of the woman who DO breastfeed are still exclusively breastfeeding after 6 months. Factoring in the women who don't breastfeed at all, we're talking about less than 10% of our population is being breastfed past 6 months. This is just appalling. We have a responsibility to educate ourselves as a nation and change the "norm". We need to refuse to be a part of a the majority and change the status quo.

"If a multinational company developed a product that was a nutritionally balanced and delicious food, a wonder drug that both prevented and treated disease, cost almost nothing to produce and could be delivered in quantities controlled by the consumers' needs, the very announcement of their find would send their shares rocketing to the top of the stock market. The scientists who developed the product would win prizes and the wealth and influence of everyone involved would increase dramatically. Women have been producing such a miraculous substance, breastmilk, since the beginning of human existence..." -Gabrielle Palmer

Snow!

It's feels totally wrong to be posting this today. The snow is almost gone and it's supposed to hit 60 degrees today! But not quite a month ago, we were hit with back-to-back snowstorms bigger than this area has seen in over 20 years. Yeah. Remember when I thought an inch of snow was blog-worthy? We saw about two feet of snow at our house, but some of our neighbors and friends measured close to 3 feet!

Honestly, even though I did my fair share of complaining, it was fun to be snowed in.

And it was beautiful.

You know you live in the country...

...when you have to plow your own road.

Snow angel!

Our driveway will never be the same. You should see the ruts the melting snow left. Errr, that our tires left in the melting, muddy snow. Not pretty.

This pictures was taken about 30 seconds after we came outside. This was the one and only smile we got out of her. Turns out snow isn't so much fun when you can't walk in it. My girl HATED it.

You can't tell in this picture, but she's screaming in this picture and waiting for Daddy to come rescue her.

Oh, and this is our road!

Now that spring is in the air, I hope it stays! I'm looking forward to the warmer weather and all the fun it brings!

You can find me over there

I started this blog a little over a year ago to share my rantings thoughts on parenting, natural living, healthy eating and natural childbirth. It's sort of become a cross between that and personal posts - with some other randoms topics thrown in there. I want to keep this blog specifically for my personal photos and ramblings about topics that I want to write about. So.... I've started posting about the adventures on my kitchen table in my craft room over here. I have some sewing/crafty tutorials I want to do and I feel like they "fit" better over there. So if you're not following me over there and your into that sort of thing, now would be a good time. Seriously, follow me. You know you want to.

In the meantime, I'm working on the "snow" post I promised. Loads and loads of pictures, prepare yourself!