What's Wrong With Mommy's Milk?
Story by Shana White // Art by Wesley Vara

Even though I am not a mother, I always thought that breastfeeding your baby was the best thing to do for them. I was raised watching news reports of how beneficial it can be.   Even in school they'd say how breastfeeding develops babies brain and immune systems better than formula milk.

But now the media is spotlighting toxins and the effects it can have babies. There were over 350 chemicals found in human milk, some of the same chemicals that are found in pesticides and rocket-fuel. These poisonous chemicals can build up in the body over time and can cause cancer, immune system damage and hormonal imbalances.

The thing about this issue is that not all mothers usually face the same dangers for their child.   Those without a lot of money have to figure out ways to provide nutritious diets without a lot of resources and even needed health care could be hard to get. Bit the breast milk issue isn't just affecting mothers in the low-income communities, but hits every class level. Toxic breast milk is not also associated with the pollution from living in contaminated areas, but also from things like expensive perfumes. Rich or poor, black or white, all mothers are effected by toxic breast-milk.

So now this is leaving me asking, if the mother's milk is toxic what are younger mothers going to do when they hear about this?

Maris Lewis, 27-year-old mother of a six week-old baby,   lives in East Palo Alto, a low-income community that has a chemical waste plant in it's neighborhood. Maris says she decided to give up breast feeding her six week-old baby recently. She noticed her baby was breaking out, what her pediatric doctor called baby acne, and wasn't sure what was causing it. “I've asked different doctors and they have told me different things. One doctor said it was my hormones that I passed to her through the feeding that can cause the baby skin condition.” Maris also said that it wasn't only baby's acne that was a problem, the baby also had constipation. “I ate healthy while I was pregnant, but after a while I wanted stop watching everything I ate.”   Maris was also told that it was her diet, an abundance of beans specifically, that effected the baby. But Maris didn't want to change what she ate, her diet was based on her Nicaraguan culture.

Even though Maris stopped breast feeding her child, many of the young women I talked to stopped breast-feeding for different reasons – their body rather than the health of the their baby. The girls don't want to sag after a certain period of time, or another reason is the pain of breast-feeding.

Kennetha Hahan is a 21-year-old mother of two –Julian (1 year old) and Kimberly (two months old).   Kennetha doesn't breastfeed her children, but she did at first. “Even when I was pregnant I already knew I wasn't going breast feed my baby. But a lot of people around me kept telling me that I should and that it can be good for the baby so I tried it,” Kennetha says. When Julian was born she tried it for a while, she even had a “Lacto Nurse” teach her how to feed her baby. After a few months she stopped because she said it hurt and she didn't want to go through having her kids weaned. She jokes that she also had personal reasons didn't want her “girls all droopy,” but its too late now she says.

Medical experts say breast milk still provides all the nutrients a baby needs for a healthy start to life along with a range of other health benefits for both mother and baby.   For instance breastfeeding protects babies against ear and chest infections, eczema, wheezing and childhood diabetes. Well-known pediatrician Dr. Green, author of From First Kicks to First Step, has been an expert on chemicals in human milk. He said that he still encourages breastfeeding, despite all the bad media. “The best thing for a mother to do who wants to breastfeed is to eat more organic foods,” said Dr. Green in a phone interview.

Media reports of dangers associated with breastfeeding seems to have had very little effect on the decision-making process of young mothers.   Although new information seems to be coming out all the time about studies on breastfeeding, it is the old sources of information that women are trusting – their doctors and their motherly instincts.