For the last two weeks, the preacher has made me cry! Maybe he's just really hitting my heart with his words, or it might be the hormones gifted to me by the little human I know is coming out soon, but either way, I spent the last two services praying I didn't have mascara running down my face.
This Sunday, he said we needed to be praying for our hearts to be broken for what breaks God's heart. Now I am sure the whole rest of the congregation was thinking about poor children and drug afflicted families, but I sat there, crying my eyes out, thinking about breastfeeding.
Aside from the calling to marry my husband or to stay home with my babies, I have never felt a greater calling than what I feel is my calling to help people breastfeed. I live in an area where breastfeeding is not really the norm, nor is it as accepted as I wish it was. Often I feel so overwhelmed by the challenges, that my impact seems nearly non-existent. As is common in much of this country, many moms here would rather pump and feed their baby a bottle in a restaurant than face the judgment the receive for nursing. I also live in an area where many of the breastfeeding professionals are much more interested in the profit they can gain than the lives that they can change. So, our challenges are daily and very big.
Now why did this make me cry Sunday?
There are hungry babies in this country.
There are babies affected by child abuse every single day.
There are babies who almost lose their lives because their families can't afford formula and dilute it to toxic levels. Formula companies convince moms that what you can buy is better than what God gave you. And while breastfeeding might not solve these problems, I really feel like it might help. And just as a disclaimer, I know there are people that can't breastfeed and with my whole heart I am understanding and compassionate to those people, but a LOT of people just make a choice not to try or not to try very hard.
Even in the poorest of cultures, babies have a greater chance at survival when their moms choose to breastfeed. Yes, a mom who barely receives the intake to meet her own nutritional needs gives her baby a greater chance at life when she breastfeeds.
I cannot attribute this next opinion to anyone but myself and I don't know that there will ever be research to prove my opinion to be true. However, I strongly believe that would could decrease abuse in our country if we increased our breastfeeding rates. There is no greater way, in my opinion, to bond a mother with her baby than breastfeeding. Baby-friendly hospitals in some countries have seen a dramatic decrease in abandonment of newborns when mothers are encouraged to breastfeed.
Now, please, please, please do not leave me hateful comments, thinking I look negatively toward formula feeding moms. That is NOT the point of this post. I am not saying all moms who choose to use formula abuse their children. I am, however, saying some moms are more prone to being abusers and the pattern of abuse might actually be stopped with the bond that breastfeeding brings between mother and child.
I also see a great financial struggle with some formula-feeding families. If the families that cannot afford formula and are forced to dilute it would have made the choice to breastfeed, these babies would never suffer from the complications that can come with malnutrition. Being a stay at home mom, I know how challenging finances can sometimes be. I think if moms were better educated on the kind of money they would be forced to spend on formula, they might make better decisions.
Lastly, my heart breaks because formula companies in this country convince families that what they can provide from a can is better than the way God intended our babies to be fed. The lack of regulation of what these companies can advertise never ceases to astonish me.
I know the preacher intended for me to think about AIDS ravaged villages and poverty-stricken orphans, but my heart breaks for breastfeeding. I guess God breaks each of our hearts for different things and mine will always break every time I see a baby with a bottle of formula, because I know what he is missing.
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