In addition to my doula work, I also babysit. On Monday I get to start watching a little 5 month old! I am very excited about this. I am also excited that her mom an I have similar parenting philosophies and feel the same about many things. Baby is exclusively breastfed.
Right now the baby goes to daycare at the Mom’s work. Mom and I were going over things the other day and mom asked if I needed a red band around baby’s bottles. She informed me that the daycare requires this, as breastmilk is a bodily function/secretion, and is considered a biohazardous material.
I told mom that there was no WAY I wanted her to do this. I could not believe this was done!! Honestly I feel formula would be more of a biohazard tan something that is created specifically for a baby!
I am so bothered by this. I think alot of younger unmarried women tend to work at daycare centers. And this is something that could totally put them off from breastfeeding their own child one day. What are we teaching our children, our young adults? We are conditioning them to think that what our body does is gross!!
Why do we do this? Now don’t get me wrong, I feel formula has a place. I do feel everyone should have the choice on how they feed their own child. But I just wish that we would give good balanced info and not condition our youth to think this is a gross practice.