Mary KennyMary Kenny defends the Catholic Church against accusations it has contributed to the fall of breast-feeding in Ireland
I received an email recently from a woman who wrote: “Whenever they can take a knock at the Catholic Church, they will.” Well, no institution is blameless, but I have seen the Catholic Church blamed for problems which are frankly quite outside its scope. (In the 1960s, the Catholic Church was blamed for causing schizophrenia. We now know that it is caused by a brain enzyme which can, incidentally, be triggered by using marijuana.)
The latest claim is that Ireland’s low breast-feeding rates “may be the result of the country’s strong Catholic heritage”, according to the journal BMJ Global Health. Dr Jonathan Bernard of the Sorbonne claims: “According to our findings, the large cultural influence of Roman Catholicism in Ireland may act as an underlying cause that can explain, at least partly, why Ireland reached such a low rate [of breast-feeding] in the 1970s, and why since, despite health policies, the rate increase hasn’t been faster relative to other western countries.”
Wait a minute. My mother, her sisters and her female cousins, were all raised in a Catholic Ireland of the early years of the 20th Century. They were all strongly observant Catholics – and none of them, as far as I know, had any problems with breast-feeding.
My Ma had an easy-going attitude that might even shock some women today. A cousin of hers had a baby around the same time that I was born, and when the said cousin was delayed by shopping in Dublin city, and her baby was hungry, Ma just latched the cousin’s baby on and breast-fed the crying infant.
‘Disgusted’
Some modern women, I’m told, are ‘disgusted’ at the idea of a woman breast-feeding another woman’s child, but neither my mam nor her cousin thought anything amiss with it. It was done perfectly naturally.
If these women in traditional Catholic Ireland approached breast-feeding without any hang-ups – how is it that Catholic Ireland is now somehow to blame for low breast-feeding rates? It doesn’t add up.
The new factor in the fall of breast-feeding, from the 1970s, is surely ‘modernisation’, and the hard sell that some baby-milk companies delivered to maternity units in hospitals. I recall this occurring in maternity units in London in the 1970s: the salesman from Cow & Gate offered a range of free samples for bottle-feeding, and companies which sterilised baby bottles were in on the act too.
It’s been shown that, in Africa, corporations like Nestlé have pushed bottle-feeding to poor mothers, with the underlying message that it’s more ‘modern’ and ‘sophisticated’. When, especially in Africa where water supplies may be unreliable, it’s actually more dangerous.
Reasons
There may be psychological reasons why breast-feeding is low in Ireland; I remember a nurse from Co. Kerry talking to me about this. “I had to learn that breast-feeding was better for baby and mother,” she said.
“When I first went into nursing, I thought it was something a bit backward, almost animal-like, just as we’d seen the cows and sows on the farm. As an educated woman, I wanted to get away from that ‘animal’ aspect of activity. I had to learn that what is natural is often best.”
That nurse could probably give BMJ Global Health some insights.
Celebrate, don’t denigrate
Whether Theresa May will turn out to be a successful Prime Minister of Britain only history will tell.
But the outspoken way that she stands up for her Christian beliefs is admirable. She doesn’t indulge in that “mind-you-I’ve-said-nothing” evasive language, or defer to Political Correctness for fear of offending secularists. Christians, she said last week, should not be afraid to “speak freely” about their faith at work and in public places.
Noting that “we are now in a season of Advent”, the Prime Minister said that Christians should “jealously guard” their right to stand up for their faith. She endorsed a report by the Evangelical Alliance and the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship that Christianity should be “celebrated, not denigrated” – especially at Christmas.
Mrs May is an active member of the Church of England, and says that her faith “lies behind what I do”. Her vicar father was High Church and Theresa attended a Catholic convent for a year, as a schoolgirl. Somewhere along the line she was taught to have the courage of her convictions.
Advent: A lesson in preparation I suppose one of the ‘life lessons’ I’ve learned over the course of my experience is that ‘preparation is everything’. For any event, you must prepare. Sometimes it’s hard to match this with spontaneity, but preparation sure can fend off anxiety.
I heard a lovely sermon over the last week about Advent being a lesson in preparation: and yet, it is also an exercise in looking back as well as looking forward. Because to move on, we also have to review. Wise counsel.