A whirlwind of despair in a world gone mad

Madonna And Child by Francesco Botticini c.1475 Public Domain Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN

“It is justice and respect that I want the world to dust off and put—without-delay, and with tenderness—back on the head of the Palestinian child.” Alice Walker (author of The Color Purple, poet, social activist) “Why I’m sailing to Gaza,” CNN June 21, 2011

Restless and sleep deprived, I feel a whirlwind of despair for the state of the world. Watching a world full of hate expressed in white phosphorus, mega-ton bombs, tanks, and bullets, death and destruction visited on innocents; how can anyone justify such inhumanity?

Surviving under a bombardment of bombs and bullets a family’s living quarters has become a tent made of scavenged plastic. The cobbled-together tent may shield a family from the rain, but it doesn’t stop bombs or bullets. The mother with her young baby sits and feeds her baby, while her children surround her watching her feed the baby. The father speaks of the expense of this newest addition to the family. Infant formula is difficult to find in a city under siege. What has this family done to deserve homelessness? Nothing. It’s called collective punishment, a well-know military and educational tool to create discipline, or kill off an innocent population. Does it work? No. It just creates hate and animosity towards the perpetrators.

Infant formula is expensive even in wealthy countries, and I imagine difficult to obtain during a siege in which food, fuel, and water are denied a population. What water that is available is often contaminated, no electricity or internet. Raw sewage runs in the streets, sanitation a thing of the past. Hospitals are disabled by bombs, no medicine, no anesthesia, amputations on adults and children without anesthesia, doctors killed or arrested, ambulances destroyed. Family members killed or buried alive and dead under the rubble of their homes. This is a humanitarian crisis like no other. Our concerns are silenced, through a weaponized censorship.

Is this my story to tell? No, not at all. It isn’t my nightmare of a reality. My story and my despair is that I live in a country that only respects violence, wealth, and social marketing (propaganda) as a solution to all problems. It is a Hollywood movie on steroids. The good guys versus the bad guys meet on the street, guns ablazing. We believe that the winner is our side. We are of course, the good guys. But are we the good guys?

My story

I heard a variety of individuals in media express concerns about the lack of access to infant formula in Gaza. How will babies survive without infant formula? Hm, maybe breastfeeding? How can I be concerned about breastfeeding, when the issues of life and death in Gaza are so important. Maybe because the issue of infant life and death are intertwined with the supposedly simple decision to breastfeed or to use infant formula. The decision to not breastfeed in the midst of a war against civilians (or any emergency for that matter) is dependency on a working infrastructure that may quickly become broken in an emergency. I watched an interview of a pediatrician who had worked in a Gaza hospital in the beginning of the bombardment. She talked about helping mothers breastfeed. I applaud her dedication and the many others who work hard in areas around the world promoting and protecting breastfeeding! Yet we still have much more to do, because so many people do not understand the risks of infant formula.

Infant formula feeding is always a risk, but the risk during emergencies or in areas of poverty is much, much higher. If mothers knew about the risks, might they reconsider their “choice.” How much of their choice is based on the illusions created by an industry’s marketing? How much of it is based on capitalism, profits, and influence? How much is dependent on a society’s view of the place of women in society?

21 Dangers of Infant Formula, Produced by World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action, written by Nancy Forrest, RN, BSN, IBCLC, April 2012 from Breastfeeding in Lebanon

A risk not mentioned

Breastfeeding in the first hour after the birth of a baby has a benefit not often discussed. Breastfeeding releases oxytocin, which clamps down the uterus, reducing bleeding.

“Obstetric hemorrhage is the most common and dangerous complication of childbirth.”

“Of an estimated 76.7 million delivery hospitalizations, 2.3 million (3%) were complicated by postpartum hemorrhage.” US data

Both quotes above are from an article in Obstetrics & Gynecology (January 2023) entitled, “Postpartum Hemorrhage Trends and Outcomes in the United States, 2000-2019,” Chiara M. Corbetta-Rastelli, MD et al.

I looked at some medical protocols and it seems that a shot of pitocin is recommended for all mothers after the birth and delivery of the placenta. (World Health Organization Recommendations: Intrapartum Care for a Positive Childbirth Experience, 2018). Many recommendations or medical protocols in the US as well as the World Health Organizations (WHO) encourage breastfeeding in the first hour of birth. Do all US medical facilities follow a recommendation that all mothers get pitocin after delivery of the placenta? I don’t know, difficult and time-consuming for me to find that information. Is pitocin needed for all mothers? in 2023 there was a shortage of pitocin, there are other drugs that can be used but pitocin is considered a better choice. What about breastfeeding as a prevention against uterine hemorrhages after childbirth?

US governmental health institutions seem to now believe that the healthy human body, particularly a woman’s body, does not know how to work. The standard belief now is that only through vaccination can humans develop immunity to diseases, that natural immunity does not exist. It has been well-kniown that babies do receive antibodies against diseases the mother has encountered through her placenta and through breastfeeding. The medical belief is that childbirth and breastfeeding need augmentations of man-made drugs, formulas, vaccines, or equipment (vacuum suctioning of babies, forceps, breastpumps, etc), because the human body does not work the way science thinks it should work. Birth and breastfeeding is by the clock, and requires interventions. Interventions often cause more interventions, and that can cascade into some serious side-effects. Pitocin has some serious side-effects (one known side effect is hemorrhaging of the uterus), the oxytocin in breastmilk has no known side effects.

In an emergency or in a war, breastfeeding in the first hour after birth, and exclusively thereafter may be critical for the survival of the infant (even for the mother’s survival considering that breastfeeding may prevent hemorrhaging of the uterus). A mother cannot control events such as: wars, sieges, shortages of infant formula and pitocin, fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes; but she has a semblance of control in her and her baby’s world through breastfeeding. Dependency on always having access to infant formula, health care, freedom from human or environmental violence, should be tempered with the reality that their may be times, when all the civility of life vanishes.

“May all be fed, may all be healed, may all be loved.”—John Robbins

May there be a permanent ceasefire in Palestine!