The Milky Way

Is the following statement "true" (?) - or - "false" (?).... "A breastfed baby (as opposed to a bottle-fed baby) is, indeed, a happier and, yes, healthier baby."

Well, for you to find out the answer to that particular query you'll just have to watch this "Milky Way" documentary where both pediatricians and mothers, alike, express their valid viewpoints on the whole subject.

For the most part - This 90-minute presentation was quite an eye-opener. And, with that in mind - It clearly revealed the changing face of breastfeeding which has taken a steady and serious decline in the USA since the mid-20th century when bottled formulas for babies were introduced to the public.

Though I and most of my friends are beyond child-bearing years, I was interested in seeing the latest discussion in favor of breast-feeding, if for no other reason than that it also says a lot about our culture's attitudes toward women.

Throughout the film I found myself having mixed feelings, recalling my own experience twenty years ago when I gave birth. I went through a lot of what the film portrays, including the conflicting feelings about breast feeding, and my ultimately not doing so, and the ensuing guilt (which was soon eradicated for various reasons I won't go into here). It seems that no matter what a woman decides, there's room for guilt or at least ambivalence.

Clearly the producers of the film and people interviewed in the film feel passionately about their point of view. Where I feel the film could have gone further, however, is a deeper exploration (and explanation) of our culture's attitudes toward women's bodies and breasts, in particular.

A serious discussion about breast-feeding cannot take place without looking at the extreme sexualization of breasts. It still surprises me when I see (mostly) young women casually dressed but with huge (many enhanced) breasts expressly showing in bras and shirts designed to accent them. One only has to look at the fashion world, and the world of Hollywood, which, of course, is trend-setting. Almost all women getting "dressed up" today have a lot of cleavage showing, to say the least. Breasts have become part of the fashion statement.

The question of how do we reconcile this with a goal of greater societal acceptance of breast-feeding should have been further delved into in The Milky Way. It was basically breezed over, for example, showing Bill Maher, a person I usually consider intelligent and with the "correct" views (ones that I agree with!), comparing breast-feeding to "masturbating, farting and taking a p--s," i.e., a bodily function that should be done in private. On the other hand, I'd guess that Bill thinks breasts are beautiful in another context, i.e., sexually.

I'd love to see the makers of this film, and/or someone else, go the next step with this subject.

This movie started out with such promise ... Unfortunately it squandered such good will rather quickly.

What makes this unfortunate is that some of the information in this documentary is really good and some of the points it makes about modern society need to be said. And then this movie delves into some serious alt-med conspiracies like autism scares, big pharma(formula?) scare mongering, and some vaccine paranoia.

The best way to describe the "science" in this movie is that it scratches the surface, but fails to meaningfully go deeper. For instance, research has shown that outcomes (morbidity and mortality aka death and disease) for breastfed infants and mothers are superior compared to formula fed infants. HOWEVER, recent research has shown two things: some of those differences are getting smaller as manufactured formula becomes more and more like breast milk, and many of the discrepancies between formula fed and breastfed infants seem to disappear once studies correct for the demographic differences between breastfed and formula fed infants. Also, this movie never hesitated to describe the outcomes improved by breastfeeding, however at no point did they describe by how much outcomes are improved. I suspect it's because the scientific data shows significant but modest differences between the two groups, rather than the night and day differences of either being perfectly healthy or riddled with disease that are portrayed in this movie.

This movie absolutely knocks it out of the part when they call out current attitudes in our culture which sexualize breasts in spite of their biological function. Then the film speaks to several women about the embarrassment they suffered breast feeding in public. This is immensely powerful, and these voices needed to be heard.

I was a little disappointed that the movie only made passing remarks about maternal leave policies in European countries in comparison to America. Given that the largest factor which explains breastfeeding disparities in America is income level, it would have been so impactful to tell the stories of working class women in America versus Germany or Norway and how different their experiences are.

Then there is the pediatrician in this film ... who tries to say with a straight face that the American Academy of Pediatrics, and by extension the pediatrics profession, only thinks in terms of illness and not in terms of wellness.

THIS IS NEWS TO ME. When I took a pediatrics rotation in school ALL WE TALKED ABOUT WAS WELLNESS. We learned how to examine children for the markers of proper growth and development, including risk for obesity. The pediatric department would have LOVED to see more mothers breastfeeding, unfortunately most of our patients had zero support outside of family and the meager social services available. Why didn't this movie choose to address the role of poverty and lack of social services in explaining breastfeeding rates?

To be fair to the pediatrician, given how much grey is in his hair, he MIGHT have gone to school and residency before the AAP made wellness a big part of their mission, or he might have gone to programs which failed to make wellness an important part of their curriculum. It shows that he is not keeping up with the standards of his profession, which calls his expertise as a scientist into question. However that becomes more difficult to believe as he also goes on to make several wacky claims, like how growth charts are misleading, you know cause they are made by the formula companies. Which is bananas because the two main organizations which publish growth curves are the WHO and the CDC. I guess Enfamil must be a subsidiary or a shell company of the CDC. He also makes an amazing prediction about autism rates, but I'll get to that in a few paragraphs.

Then there was the garbage about CORN SYRUP SOLIDS. According to this movie they are in ALL BABY FORMULA, and it is eeeeeevil because either they're made from corn or it's loaded with fructose

Which surprised me, because a.) Corn Syrup Solids contain NO fructose, it's just glucose monosaccharides and short glucose chains and b.) of the big three formula manufacturers, NONE of them put CSS in their first-line (or standard) baby formula, it's the specialty formulas designed for specific medical conditions.

Towards the end of the movie it takes a dark turn and starts predicting that as more and more mothers continue to formula feed, diseases like ADHD, autism and asthma are only going to increase, until by 2050, 50% of children will be autistic. If only there was a reference for that whopper of a claim.

In closing, this documentary had a good goal, a noble aim. It wanted to address a serious problem in our society today, unfortunately it decided to do a paper-thin dive into the topic and failed to fact check most of their claims. While the film highlighted cultural attitudes which impede breastfeeding, it ignored much more important economic realities that require so many American women to formula feed. I can't give this film a one star review because I feel its intention wasn't to fear-monger, it had a good goal to make the argument for breast feeding. Unfortunately the film makers decided to listen to bad arguments and only made a cursory attempt to fully explore the good arguments presented to them.