Comments on: Daddy-san (part 2): Breast is best and don’t let your Japanese OB/GYN tell you otherwise

By: inandoutnagoya

inandoutnagoya — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:06:25 +0000

thanks for the great articles! I enjoy reading them a lot and totally agree with your well-researched comments. I’m a gaijin mom of a 2-year-old and a strong lactivist My personal encounter with the medical advices on breastfeeding and that of many friends around is similar to what you write. “No, your baby doesn’t grow all right, you should supplement.” The second or third day postpartum the nurse in my (very carefully selected to be as natural birth and breastfeeding-friendly as possible) hospital told me, as if she was doing me a favour, that if I go to the hospital shop and write down my name and address they’ll give me a free formula. Sure I went and thanked them for the gift. Guess which? Meiji’s Hohoemi. At that time I was a new and very scared just-born mum and the fact that my baby wasn’t growing well enough was terrifying. Few months later I went with a pregnant friend to a free pregnancy and birth seminar organized in one big department store. There were lectures, mom yoga and all sort of interesting things. And free samples of Hohoemi and baby bottles for everyone.
There is just one important detail I want to add to the picture. This situation is not typical for Japan (unfortunately). It is the case for the majority of countries and US is not exception, neither Europe where I come from.
Actually most of my Japanese friends are breasfeeding and many foreign mums I know are exclusively bottle-feeding. The consept breast is the best is slowly taking stand, but so far it’s more of a grass-root movement rather than officially supported and facilitated policy, in most countries.
I’ve heard the phrase “You don’t have enough milk” in so many languages so often. And yet I just recently heard it again – from a friend back home who just recently had a baby. A doctor, a surgeon. Saying his wife didn’t have enough milk and they’re supplementing with formula. “She’s only producing 30 ml of breastmilk and the baby should be recieving 50ml, so we top up with 20ml of formula. No, I don’t worry, after all there hasn’t been a proven difference in the long-term health status of breastfed and bottle fed infants.” I was speachless. Who has sponsored the study he’s referring to, was the question in my mind. Has he ever opened a WHO site or at least a American Association of Pediatricians? This is only to show you that most medical professionals DO NOT get any training on brestfeeding, which is only reasonable – medicine is a science of human pathologies. Breastfeeding does not fall in this category. So all the information medical professionals recieve on the topic of infant nutrition comes from – you guessed it – formula manufacturers. Worldwide.
So I guess the cultural shock here is not between countries perspectives but between educated and illiterate.
P.S. my favourite books on the topic is Martha and William Sears The Breatfeeding Book and La Leche league’s The womanly art of Breastfeeding, available in Japanese だれでもできる母乳育児.
P.P.S. And an idea for the author – I’m very interested to hear your opinion on the topic of where does the baby sleep. I’m sure you must have had this discussion My personal opinion is that we on the west have totally lost it here. I’d never leave my baby sleep alone in a cage in a different room. And what industry have we made out of it! It is dangerous for the baby to sleep with its parents??? And most of the “civilised” world buys on this nonsense!

By: tassie

tassie — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:39:32 +0000

Actually, now I think about it, my wife’s “trusted” doctor was telling her a few weeks before the birth that for XYZ reasons she was quite likely to not be able to produce as much milk as other mothers so shouldn’t be worried if she had to add milk. Man – how does that doctor sleep at night.

By: tassie

tassie — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:33:56 +0000

Okay, well here is an interesting spin on the same story for you. As I mentioned in your other article on pregnancy, my wife gave birth to our first child – a beautiful little girl – last week. Our hospital was supposed to be “the place to go” to give birth in the area (we live in north Osaka). Well they clearly didn’t read this article because the first day of little baby’s life is deemed a rest day for the Mum. I understand the concept and yes, I do like the idea of giving the Mum a rest after a hard pregnancy. The problem is that this “rest” includes feeding. In fact all of the Mother’s are told that “breast feeding does not start until day two!” (huh?) The nurses looked after our little girl for the first day (ie. they filled her up with formula without consulting us). They didn’t tell us about the colostrum thing you mention in this article. After reading this article I had a look around the hospital and low and behold they had those ads you were talking about from infant formula companies all over the place. damn. I feel like my daughter has been sold to the devil and she is only 8 days old!

By: red

red — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:55:10 +0000

Part #3 of the series is up:
http://www.stippy.com/japan-life/first-time-gaijin-dad-3/
My take on traveling with a young child.
We traveled half way around the world several times with our newborn son and didn’t have a problem – so don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

By: majimeaussie

majimeaussie — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:03:21 +0000

bowite74,

I have sympathy for your situation and believe that you should have been able to bring up your baby how you wanted to (provided it is nothing that will harm the baby – and not using formula would not have). However, I understood the article to be about whether clinics promote breastfeeding or not and in your case it seems they probably still have promoted breastfeeding but not to the total exclusion of formula. To me it seems more like it was the common problem in Japan of “these are the rules / procedures and we will not change them”.

Anyway I hope everything is going well for your third baby.

By: bowtie74

bowtie74 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:32:07 +0000

majimeaussie,
it sounds like the “system” served you well – which is great – but it falls apart with couples like us who didn’t want our baby to have any formula. We have had two children already before coming to Japan. Both were raised entirely on the breast so we know all about the fact that it takes a little while for milk to come through and it isn’t that easy for baby and mother in the first week or two. Because we had seen our first two children grow up to be healthy children we were very keen for our third (born in Japan) to be purely breast. The problem was that out hospital wouldn’t have a word of it. Their rules stated that the mother had to sleep at night in a separate room to the baby and that the baby would be given formula during the night so that the mother could sleep. We protested fiercly and made it very clear (in fluent Japanese) that we wanted to breast feed and that we didn’t want them to give our child any formula at all but didn’t get anywhere. Surely that is taking it too far? I didn’t know about the WHO guidelines until I read this article but you would think a Dr would.

By: robin barker

robin barker — Sat, 09 May 2009 01:28:20 +0000

Hi
Robin Barker here, author of Baby Love, with a quick comment. Nice work Daddy-San, spot on. The comment I want to make is that over the time I worked at the Bondi Beach Early Childhood Centre in Australia (10 years lactation consultant and 25 years child and family health nurse) I saw many Japanese women – either permament residents or visiting – and they all breastfed very successfully for at least the first six months. This was so much the case that it was something I noticed. As well they all (‘all’ is no exaggeration – I do not recall one Japanese mother using formula as the main milk) had a bountiful supply, their babies thrived. For more on infant formula especially following the baby milk tragedy in China go to http://www.realdirt.com.au – follow the links using my name. The formula manufacturers’ marketing, especially in developing countries such as China and India where there are enormous profits awaiting and in countries like North America, and it would seem Japan, where there are very few government controls is clever and subtle, designed to undermine womens’ confidence and to make formula feeding the ‘norm’. I cannot say it too often – breastfeeding is the normal way to feed babies. If it didn’t work the human race would have perished.

By: aso4pm

aso4pm — Fri, 08 May 2009 13:32:08 +0000

in our case, our baby was taken away and given milk on the first night in order to give the mum a rest. it made sense to me at the time because my wife was looking pretty tired. it seemed to be the norm at that hospital. it sounds like majimeaussie went to a similar place. i wonder which is better…

By: majimeaussie

majimeaussie — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:14:38 +0000

It is always interesting reading your stories. As I have mentioned before, I am a few months behind you in the processes so it is very educational.

However, my experience has been very different to yours. I can’t comment on how the overall system compares to Australia as I haven’t had a birth in Australia but I know that there were similar claims of stealth marketing (I admit I have no idea if anything was done to prevent it in future). Even with my wife using the magazines as her main source of information she (and I) were convinced that breast feeding was best. We attended the courses organised by the local kuyakusho as well as going to the sanfujinka. On all occasions we were told that breast feeding was best. During the start of breastfeeding my wife was told that it is often difficult / takes time at first but was given advice and encouragement by the clinic staff. FYI, this clinic is not on the list of places certified for breastfeeding that is linked to in your previous article but a typical, if respected, Japanese clinic.

The staff at the local kuyakusho health advice centre have also been helpful in providing advice on breastfeeding and during the follow up classes there almost all of the mothers have breastfed and I haven’t heard any real complaints of degawarui.

I am also a bit mystified by your comment “I’ve heard of some very unsettling stories in Japanese hospitals that have even resorted to giving formula to babies within the first few days of their lives.” Your tone seems to almost equate this issues such as with murder or female circumcision. I am probably reading your comment incorrectly but I read it as you are horrified that it happens. While babies may be able to live without receiving milk for the first few days as you say this may not be the best for them. As our baby was on the small side, I am grateful for the “boost” they gave during the initial stage until milk production started as I believe it helped prevent weakening of him during this period.

As can be seen from my experience above (and talking to other friends having babies here) it has been very different to what you have written. Also condemning the Japanese system based on marketing practices of the formula companies may not be correct, as I have seen similar claims in other countries. Should those countries systems (including my own) be condemned as well?

By: Paternity Leaf

Paternity Leaf — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:25:34 +0000

OrenM,
you’ve hit the nail on the head. What is it with those hospitals who insiste on fattening up babies before they go home? every baby will learn to breast feed at its own pace and different babies regain their birth weight at different times. Except in very extreme cases, there is no way that a doctor could honestly advise that a baby is having growth issues and must be fattened up during the short (generally 1 week in Japan) stay after birth. Any web search will tell you not to panic if your baby is only growing slowly at the begining (moshi moshi! half of all babies grow slower than the average!)
Japanese hospitals seem to be obsessed with weight gain targets. It’s enough to drive you stir crazy… Think of the pressure that it puts on the Mum to hit these irrelevant targets.

Who decides the weight that a baby must be when it leaves the hospital? And how do they calculate it?

The other problem is that a lot of these numbers are based on average baby weights but with the huge % of Japanese babies on formula or ‘a mix’ the average baby weight statistics are skewed to the upside. It sounds like you chose a good hopsital OrenM!