How Catholic Nursing Mothers are Saving the Environment

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There was a very recent editorial in the Breastfeeding Medicine Journal that showed that breastfeeding cuts carbon emissions in several ways: fewer cows needed (cow’s milk is used in the manufacture of powdered formula), less waste in the landfills from formula cans and bottle supplies, and less energy usage needed (no need to heat up water when preparing formula).  The reduction in carbon emissions is equivalent to 50,000+ fewer cars on the road just in the UK if mothers breastfeed instead of use formula! (1) (2)

I want to add a few more items to the reduced environmental impact list.  If a mother ecologically breastfeeds, she uses quite a few less feminine hygiene type products over her lifetime.  The average ecological breastfeeding mother has between 9-15 months of breastfeeding amenorrhea.  Let’s choose 12 months as the median point.  Say she has 3 children - so 9 months times 3 for the pregnancy amenorrhea and 12 times 3 for the lactational amenorrhea.  That is a total of 63 months or 5.25 years of not needing feminine hygiene products.  If she has more children and longer stretches of amenorrhea, the number of months goes up even more!

By breastfeeding, there is no waste or carbon emissions from formula feeding.  By practicing ecological breastfeeding, in particular, she does not need pacifiers or possibly even a crib if she cosleeps (a bassinet on the floor works well when baby naps during the day).  She might save all her kids’ clothes and hand them down to the next kid which uses less resources.  Her family carpools so less pollution created from cars (when I lived in CA, the carpool lane only required 2 people in a car so even a mom with one child would qualify!).  If she uses elimination communication with her babies or cloth diapers, there are less diapers in the landfill (however, cloth diapers do need soap, water and energy to wash them).  Many couples with children actually use less square footage than average even if their homes seem bigger.  I personally live in a 2000 square foot house and have 5 children.  According to the book, The Minimalist Home, the average square footage per person in the US is 832.  My family’s is 286!  There are only a few countries on the list in the book with less average square footage per person than my family’s numbers.  I bet many of you have similar numbers!  If the mother models taking care of the environment in her home, then the next generation learns to live lightly on the planet.  Don’t worry if you do not do everything or agree with everything on the above list.  Simply breastfeeding has one of the biggest impacts!  I just wanted to throw out some other ideas.

If a Catholic mother practices NFP after her cycles return, she may need a few charting item such as paper charts (not necessarily, though, now with apps), a thermometer and test sticks (it depends on which NFP method she practices).  However, she will not be putting hormones into the environment by taking the Pill.

Breastfeeding moms, keep on saving the environmental by snuggling and nursing your babies!

(1) editorial from Breastfeeding Medicine Journal
(2) NFPI blog