Can I Ask an Honest Question?

Mmmm, there is no answer to that. You're asking if a "saying" is legit. There are exceptions to everything.

Honestly when I made the statement it was tongue in cheek, but an interesting question nonetheless.

I guess we all are just trying to do the very best we can. My cousin made a funny statement on her facebook the other day. She said, "I'll have my parenting with a side of guilt please." : )

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Funny---I've thought about that before. I know that my youngest would get REALLY ill after I breastfed him and we had to go through everything I ate the past few days and realized through a period of trial and error that he was allergic to dairy and so all the milk, cheeses, yogurt, and that post partum ice cream sundae binge made him SICK. I felt so bad! Gas, puking, rash, the whole 9 yards. :(
My bff was very proud of herself for breast feeding her son, and that's fine and good. But I mean she was "VERY" proud of it and did so well after he was one and kinda made me feel bad that I only breast fed my first son for 6 weeks and then started supplementing with formula. (I love her, I know she loves me, but she still made me feel bad about this). But then you look at her diet: she drank MAYBE 1 glass of water a day. NO milk AT ALL but like a 12 pack of Dr Pepper everyday. EVERY DAY. She doesn't know how to cook so she'd literally have Taco Bell, McDonalds, or some pork stir fry every day unless she ate at my house! Every day. She will cook a broccoli until it dies and turns into a dark green "gravy" of mush (there's no nutrients left in that), and if she DID ever eat a vegetable, it was canned and smothered in salt and butter. (I'm not exaggerating, I've written about her cooking exploits before!) Good for her, for breast feeding! But there is NO ONE that can tell me that fast food, 12 Dr Peppers, no dairy, healthy juice, or water, the cereal of choice being Frosted Flakes, and 1 serving of canned veg every single day was better for her boy than the premium formula that made efforts to balance nutrients out to get a full range of nutrition was for my boy. I just won't buy it. (By the way, her milk tasted JUST LIKE Dr Pepper, which is hilarious). She did get better over time. She did start walking around with a bottle of water all day (so that her little boy thought she was drinking it and would drink it too)....she didn't drink it, but she'd make an effort to trick him once he became a toddler. That's something, I suppose. :)
Now watch out----the milk nazis may attack for my remarks. Please don't. I am absolutely for breastfeeding! I pumped for 6 weeks to feed my preemie, and then supplemented with formula but pumped also. I breastfed my second son and loved it, but wasn't able to produce enough to do "only" breastmilk after he was about 4 months old....so I supplemented but still breastfed until he was a little older. He just had a HUGE appetite, and I just wasn't making enough (lack of sleep? body just weird? who knows!). Both boys are happy, healthy, smart, and thriving. And strangely enough so is the now 9 year old Dr Pepper baby! (He's a star soccer player and has been on the honor roll since he started school. Go figure!) We moms just have to do the best we can, and it doesn't stop with infant feeding!

I think the crux of the issue is tense. When a formula is "recalled", it has been on the market and presumably ingested by babies. Past tense. When a breastfeeding mother chooses to pump & dump for whatever reason, it is a proactive means of preventing things in the mother's system from getting to the baby through the milk.

I had pancreatitis when my twins were two months old and was on a liquid diet for a week. I was in the hospital where I had to pump and send the milk home for my babies. Toward the end, the milk was transparent. At that point, my babies were being supplemented with formula and I was OK with that as without some very expensive testing that is not even available near where I live, there was no way to be certain of the nutritional value of the milk I was producing. Not a recall, but definitely a "Let's cover our bases," scenario.

There is certainly an argument for the fact that there are circumstances where formula is better for the baby than breastmilk, but I don't think you can use "recall" interchangeably.

breast milk draws from what the mother DOES digest, it makes a perfect meal for the baby and if anyone is going to be malnourished, its mom. Nature intends for this.

its not like the placenta where all things cross.

many things do not cross into the breast milk, most of the time breast milk is just as perfect on a mother with a lacking diet just as it is with a women well versed in nutrition. Mommy needs to be healthy too, so itis important to take care of yourself. But usually the baby is getting exaclty what they need regardless.

they arent with formula, thats just the sad truth, i will not speak badly of women who choose that route, but i will also not sit and read something that could deter a mother from making a great choice because of semantics. Im not saying youre doing that.

What many women don't care to look into because they completely and mistakenly put all their trust into medical Drs - is that MOST medications are breastfeeding compatible!!

There are very few groupings of drug families that cannot be considered breastfeeding friendly.

Recalls are permanent - meaning everything from that lot number, and now they are realizing any containers that are metal or plastic, cannot be used. If a woman actually truly DOES need to pump and dump, it is for a very short time period and once that round of medication is finished she can go right back to nursing.

I should also make a note to pass on that when a breastfeeding Mother consumes something - her body is so proficient at filtering it out before it reaches the milk ducts, which also filters out some more. When you DIRECTLY have a baby consume formula, baby food, juice, etc - all things routinely found and recalled due to some sort of infiltration - then they get DIRECT contact - no filtering out of toxins first. Just something to keep in mind.

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My breast milk got "recalled" when my son was 7 days old. I had to start antibiotics and the medicine made my milk toxic to him.

I think the difference is that formula can be recalled because of human error in processing at the manufacturing, whereas, breast milk cannot be "tampered" with by any one other than the Mother.

Just my thoughts.

I know exactly what is going into my breastmilk because it is put there by me. If mine is "recalled" for whatever reason (say I wanted a glass of wine cause darn it I deserve it!), then I know why it is recalled and for how long, etc. I trust myself more than I trust some manufacturer.

Bug - This is reason # 348 we grow our own food, have our own chickens (yes, finally!) and buy organic/grass fed! And Pamela, Raven & Son is right with regard to filtration.

The big difference is that a recall usually happens AFTER you've already eaten the food or given the formula to your baby. It puts everyone at risk. If a breastfeeding mom consumes drugs (Rx) or alcohol and decides it's not healthy for her baby to consume those things she knows this BEFORE any has been distributed.
As far as mom eating a crappy diet...The baby gets the good stuff first. Any left over good stuff goes to mom, so she's not really hurting her baby. It's not like if she eats McDonalds every day her baby will be overweight. Moms health will just suffer even more since baby will take the best of what she has to offer.

A recall is different from pumping and dumping. A recall is totally outside a parent's control and knowledge. Pumping and dumping is something that can be planned for in advance.

And a poor diet for the mom does not mean that the baby gets junk too. Of course an excellent diet improves the quality of breastmilk, but the human race has survived even in lean times on the body naturally taking what it needs from whatever the mom consumes to make quality breastmilk for a baby.

I think its different, because if you bf, and take a medication, or alcohol, and pump & dump, you are at least able to make that choice? If a formula is recalled because of whatever reason, you have no way of knowing until after the fact, and the baby could of drank the "tainted" milk.

I think it is a control factor, just like how many control their kitchens by growing thier own veggies or spices, living in areas where you can hunt etc or other very specific diets.

BTW we supplemented b/c my body could not produce enough milk to fully feed him and I would have been dissapointed if I could not have bf him all together b/c I had ALWAYS wanted that experience.

I still think it is a legitimate statement. I think you are comparing apples to oranges. There will always be exceptions to life, not everyone makes the same decisions (do things that cause them to need to dump).

In my 47 months of breastfeeding my milk has never been recalled. I do not drink. I do not take medication no matter how miserable I am. No, I take that back...I took migraine pills once. I eat alright.

Oddly enough I was reading a blog last night that the author was talking about the pain killer she was just prescribed and how excited she was about it...I am pretty certain she is breastfeeding. I just could not fathom why she was so excited about taking this drug.

Breastmilk is not recalled in the same manner as formula is. Breastmilk is recalled at the mom's discretion while formula is recalled due to multiple reasons, organizations, etc. So in the truest sense, both can be "recalled". The difference comes in as to who decides to do the recall. Make sense?

I think the big difference between a recall and not breast feeding for a week because of meds is with the first you have no idea so you could give your child the formula not knowing it is bad. With breast milk you know what goes into your body so you know before you give it to your child it is bad.

Now if you were to eat a recalled item you wouldn't know but that is getting to far off the path to consider.

anything that the mother consumes that she doesnt want to expose her breastfeeding child to, should be dumped, whether it is cabbage or medication
K. h.