Breastfeeding and a general party political rant.

I have never written about breastfeeding.

Most of my blogs, when not discussing the outcomes of ageing and frailty or my place in the world reflect my everyday experience.

I don’t have much breastfeeding experience.

This week I learned that of the 760 babies born in my local hospital, only 189 were exclusively breastfed from birth, most, that is, 459 (or thereabouts – some of the data is missing) receive only formula.

These numbers, as percentages are 25 and 60 percent respectively.

In other words, for those of you who are not Rishi-numerate, over twice as many mothers bottle-feed from birth as breast.

You can work-out the demographics of my local hospital from this data.

In the more affluent parts of the country more women breast feed, and, with inequality, poverty and deprivation, more resort to the bottle.

I want to be careful here. I am not judging. Yes, all the evidence suggests that breast is best, however, the causes for women deciding breast or bottle are many and complicated.

This is not my area of expertise, and I won’t analyse.

I suspect many women carry a sense of guilt when they cannot or are forced into situations of being unable to breastfeed.

At another meeting I attended this week we discussed variation and deprivation in general.

I don’t have the statistics here – you can look them up if you are interested; for the most, those living in areas of socioeconomic deprivation will live shorter, less healthy lives than those born into and living in the most affluent. This, in some instanced is almost 20 years more of life.

With deprivation comes higher rates of cancer, stroke, heart and respiratory disease, more obesity, depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol use and abuse.

In the area I work, it is no uncommon for a man in his early 60’s, facing an imminent death to consider they have had a ‘good innings’ – levels of expectation are so low, outsiders would find it hard to conceive.

I went swimming this morning (affluent sport in the UK) and afterwards drove to the local shopping centre (affluent).

I took this photo.

It made me wonder why the breastfeeding area is often both beside the toilets and where you change babies’ nappies.

Why is baby dinnertime provided in a place of faeces and nappy changes?

Our society is screwed-up.

Tomorrow marks the 91st anniversary of the Kinder Trespass.

You can read more here.

This was a mark of defiance in 1932 by 400 people who walked across private land in the Peak District. Six were arrested.

This led to a minor change in the law and now there is a right to roam across approximately eight per cent of the countryside (in England) – in Scotland, Norway, or Sweden you can wander anywhere. The cry, ‘Get off my land’ as happened to me on Easter Friday doesn’t happen.

England is a place of landed gentry and country squires.

We, regardless of our privilege or affluence must toe-the-line. Keep to the path and not stray.

So long as the order is maintained everyone is happy.

Well, the landowners are happy.

They live long, healthy lives, unaffected by the Tory austerity that has killed hundreds of thousands of predominantly poor people.

(One death, a tragedy, 300,000, a statistic, (to paraphrase Stalin) – he would delight in the Tory achievements).

No one imagines that there will ever be a situation where all people are equal, where my worth is the same as that of the guy in the castle (or rocket ship), we can however hope, with this century’s technological wonders to approach a diminution of inequality.

I suspect many don’t want to acknowledge their deprivation; others perhaps don’t see it, like my patients who are happy getting to 63 years old then dying.

I guess that is what ‘they’ want.

They want to sell us bottled milk and milk bottles and brushes and sterilising machines and timers and all the other paraphenalia, they want to render us so very uncertain of ourselves that we will accept anything.

The Deputy Prime Minister (I think that was his role – the British government keeps changing… hard to keep track) resigned yesterday.

He was found guilty of bullying.

He denies these allegations and claims that people were ideologically motivated to oppose him; this gave him laissez-faire to shout at his staff, to intimidate and threaten.

Does this surprise me? The bully blaming the people he has bullied. No.

Britain currently sits pretty with its inequality, its status quo.

We must do something.