World Breastfeeding Week: Let's Stop Shaming Formula Feeding Moms

Breastfeeding Week is celebrated every year from August 1–7 across the globe, aiming to raise awareness about breastfeeding. This year, let's talk about the less spoken-about and tabooed counterpart of breastfeeding: formula feeding.

While breastfeeding is highly recommended for its multiple benefits for the baby and the mother, not all women are able to breastfeed. Most mothers try their best at breastfeeding before resorting to formula feeding. However, what's intruding is when society starts assuming that some mothers "simply prefer to formula-feed her child for the sake of their beauty." 

World Breastfeeding Week 2023 Formula Feeding

A mother loves her child unconditionally. After all, she has carried and nurtured the baby for nine months in her womb, delivered it, and would definitely want the best for her little one. Yet, if she chooses formula milk instead of breast milk, she has reasons of her own, which she is not liable to justify to anyone.

However, society is too quick to judge, shame, blame, and criticise women who choose to formula-feed their babies. It’s considered a sin, and formula-feeding mothers are often taunted for not fulfilling the basic needs of their children. Just like breastfeeding mothers are judged and shamed for breastfeeding in public, formula-feeding mothers too face criticism. In fact, the judgement is intense in the case of formula-feeding mothers.

Only a very few people try to understand that it’s a mother’s personal choice; she doesn’t owe anyone an explanation. Despite the fact that there are several formula-feeding support groups online, shops are stocked with formula tins, and mom influencers openly talk about formula feeding with the aim of normalising it, the number of women who even admit that they are formula feeding is meagre.

As someone who was formula-fed right from birth and as the mother of a formula-fed baby, I’ve reached a point where I don’t feel ashamed to say it out loud. I did go to the ends of the earth to continue breastfeeding, but I had health issues, and formula milk was my saviour. To reiterate, breastfeeding is highly recommended, but at the end of the day, no one should starve a baby. So, there’s no need to feel guilty about choosing to formula-feed if that will help both the baby and the mother.

"Although I initially was breastfeeding my son, I was diagnosed with mastitis a few months later, which required surgery. After that, lactation was a major problem, so I started formula-feeding my child, following the doctor’s advice. While I was able to resume breastfeeding my child two or three times a day, my child was primarily fed formula, and he’s turned out alright," shared Vidya, the mother of a 4-year-old.

Sahana was suffering from depression after walking out of a toxic marriage post-childbirth. "Due to stress and anxiety, my body stopped lactating, and formula milk came as a blessing in disguise. Although I did have mom guilt and people around me contributed to magnifying it, I’m glad that I took care of him the best way I could," said the mom of an 8-year-old.

"I had to resume work after my kid turned three months old. With a demanding job that required extensive travel, I had no energy to pump milk, create and maintain a stash, feed directly at night, and go to work the next morning," said Sindhu, the mom of a 6-year-old. "Sometimes financial constraints don’t allow us to take an extended break, so it's best to prioritise ourselves over social norms," she added.

Anitha, the mother of two kids (9 and 5), recalled struggling to breastfeed both her children because of her work nature and health issues. "Knowing that I had tried my level best and my efforts weren’t really helping in satiating my children’s hunger, I switched to formula milk for both my kids. People used to shame and judge me, but I remained self-assured that I had taken the best decision for myself and my children," she said.

Suggested Reading: World Breastfeeding Week: 5 Indian Celebrities That Normalised Breastfeeding

Views expressed by the author are their own