OBAMACARE - We are going to be gifted with a health care plan

So, let me get this straight. This is a long sentence,

We are going to be gifted with a health care plan that we

 

are forced to purchase, and fined if we don’t,” Bellar

 

 continues, “signed by a president who smokes, with

 

 

funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay

 

his taxes, by a government which has already

 

bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be

 

overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and

 

financed by a country that’s broke.

 

by Barbara Bellar



The Truth About Alkalizing Your Blood

 

 Is it true that the foods and beverages you consume cause your blood to become more alkaline or acidic?

Contrary to popular hype, the answer is: not to any significant degree.

Article by, Dr. Ben Kim

The pH of your blood is tightly regulated by a complex system of buffers that are continuously at work to maintain a range of 7.35 to 7.45, which is slightly more alkaline than pure water.

If the pH of your blood falls below 7.35, the result is a condition called acidosis, a state that leads to central nervous system depression. Severe acidosis - where blood pH falls below 7.00 - can lead to a coma and even death.

If the pH of your blood rises above 7.45, the result is alkalosis. Severe alkalosis can also lead to death, but through a different mechanism; alkalosis causes all of the nerves in your body to become hypersensitive and over-excitable, often resulting in muscle spasms, nervousness, and convulsions; it's usually the convulsions that cause death in severe cases.

The bottom line is that if you're breathing and going about your daily activities, your body is doing an adequate job of keeping your blood pH somewhere between 7.35 to 7.45, and the foods that you are eating are not causing any wild deviations of your blood pH.

So what's up with all the hype about the need to alkalize your body? And what's to be made of the claim that being too acidic can cause osteoporosis, kidney stones, and a number of other undesirable health challenges?

As usual, the answers to such questions about human health can be found in understanding basic principles of human physiology. So let's take a look at the fundamentals of pH and how your body regulates the acid-alkaline balance of its fluids on a moment-to-moment basis.

pH is a measure of how acidic or alkaline a liquid is. With respect to your health, the liquids involved are your body fluids, which can be categorized into two main groups:

1.     Intracellular fluid, which is the fluid found in all of your cells. Intracellular fluid is often called cytosol, and makes up about two-thirds of the total amount of fluid in your body.

2.     Extracellular fluid, which is the fluid found outside of your cells. Extracellular fluids are further classified as one of two types:

o    Plasma, which is fluid that makes up your blood.

o    Interstitial fluid, which occupies all of the spaces that surround your tissues. Interstitial fluid includes the fluids found in your eyes, lymphatic system, joints, nervous system, and between the protective membranes that surround your cardiovascular, respiratory, and abdominal cavities.

Your blood (plasma) needs to maintain a pH of 7.35 to 7.45 for your cells to function properly. Why your

cells require your blood to maintain a pH in this range to stay healthy is beyond the scope of this article, but the most important reason is that all of the proteins that work in your body have to maintain a specific geometric shape to function, and the three-dimensional shapes of the proteins in your body are affected by the tiniest changes in the pH of your body fluids.

The pH scale ranges from 0 to 14. A liquid that has a pH of 7 is considered to be neutral (pure water is generally considered to have a neutral pH). Fluids that have a pH below 7 - like lemon juice and coffee - are considered to be acidic. And fluids that have a pH above 7 - like human blood and milk of magnesia - are considered to be alkaline.

It's important to note that on the pH scale, each number represents a tenfold difference from adjacent numbers; in other words, a liquid that has a pH of 6 is ten times more acidic than a liquid that has a pH of 7, and a liquid with a pH of 5 is one hundred times more acidic than pure water. Most carbonated soft drinks (pop) have a pH of about 3, making them about ten thousand times more acidic than pure water. Please remember this the next time you think about drinking a can of pop.

When you ingest foods and liquids, the end products of digestion and assimilation of nutrients often results in an acid or alkaline-forming effect - the end products are sometimes called acid ash or alkaline ash.

Also, as your cells produce energy on a continual basis, a number of different acids are formed and released into your body fluids. These acids - generated by your everyday metabolic activities - are unavoidable; as long as your body has to generate energy to survive, it will produce a continuous supply of acids.

So there are two main forces at work on a daily basis that can disrupt the pH of your body fluids - these forces are the acid or alkaline-forming effects of foods and liquids that you ingest, and the acids that you generate through regular metabolic activities. Fortunately, your body has three major mechanisms at work at all times to prevent these forces from shifting the pH of your blood outside of the 7.35 to 7.45 range.

These mechanisms are

1.     Buffer Systems

o    Carbonic Acid-Bicarbonate Buffer System

o    Protein Buffer System

o    Phosphate Buffer System

2.     Exhalation of Carbon Dioxide

3.     Elimination of Hydrogen Ions via Kidneys

It's not in the scope of this post to discuss the mechanisms listed above in detail. For this article, I only want to point out that these systems are in place to prevent dietary, metabolic, and other factors from pushing the pH of your blood outside of the 7.35 to 7.45 range.

When people encourage you to "alkalize your blood," most of them mean that you should eat plenty of foods that have an alkaline-forming effect on your system. The reason for making this suggestion is that the vast majority of highly processed foods - like white flour products and white sugar - have an acid-forming effect on your system, and if you spend years eating a poor diet that is mainly acid-forming, you will overwork some of the buffering systems mentioned above to a point where you could create undesirable changes in your health.

For example, your phosphate buffer system uses different phosphate ions in your body to neutralize strong acids and bases. About 85% of the phosphate ions that are used in your phosphate buffer system comes from calcium phosphate salts, which are structural components of your bones and teeth. If your body fluids are regularly exposed to large quantities of acid-forming foods and liquids, your body will draw upon its calcium phosphate reserves to supply your phosphate buffer system to neutralize the acid-forming effects of your diet. Over time, this may lead to structural weakness in your bones and teeth.

Drawing on your calcium phosphate reserves at a high rate can also increase the amount of calcium that is eliminated via your genito-urinary system, which is why a predominantly acid-forming diet can increase your risk of developing calcium-rich kidney stones.

This is just one example of how your buffering systems can be overtaxed to a point where you experience negative health consequences. Since your buffering systems have to work all the time anyway to neutralize the acids that are formed from everyday metabolic activities, it's in your best interest to follow a diet that doesn't create unnecessary work for your buffering systems.

Acid and Alkaline-Forming Effects of Common Foods

Generally speaking, most vegetables and fruits have an alkaline-forming effect on your body fluids.

Most grains, animal foods, and highly processed foods have an acid-forming effect on your body fluids.

Your health is best served by a good mix of nutrient-dense, alkaline and acid-forming foods; ideally, you want to eat more alkaline-forming foods than acid-forming foods to have the net acid and alkaline-forming effects of your diet match the slightly alkaline pH of your blood.

The following lists indicate which common foods have an alkaline-forming effect on your body fluids, and which ones result in acid ash formation when they are digested and assimilated into your system.

Foods that have a Moderate to Strong Alkaline-Forming Effect

Watermelon
Lemons
Cantaloupe
Celery
Limes
Mango
Honeydew
Papaya
Parsley
Seaweed
Sweet, seedless grapes
Watercress
Asparagus
Kiwi
Pears
Pineapple
Raisins
Vegetable juices
Apples
Apricots
Alfalfa sprouts
Avocados
Bananas
Garlic
Ginger
Peaches
Nectarines
Grapefruit
Oranges
Most herbs
Peas
Lettuce
Broccoli
Cauliflower

Foods that have a Moderate to Strong Acid-Forming Effect

Alcohol
Soft drinks (pop)
Tobacco
Coffee

Thank You Dr. Ben Kim for your controbution to Carlsvilleproject Health.

First Comprehensive Genetic Analysis of Breast Cancer Could Change Treatment

 

There are Four distinct types of breast cancer and that genetic changes occurring as cancer cells spread are vastly different for each type.

Judy Woodruff , of PBS, talks to National Cancer Institute's Dr. Harold Varmus for more on what the research could mean for treatment in the future.

 Transcript

JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, new research that's changing our understanding of cancer.

Scientists say they have found new insights into four genetically distinct types of breast cancer, potentially altering the way doctors one day treat the disease.

The findings were published yesterday in the journal "Nature" as part of a comprehensive genetic analysis of breast cancer.

Among other discoveries, researchers say that a rare but deadly form of breast cancer bears a genetic resemblance to the kinds of tumors found in lung and ovarian cancers.

Doctors also learned that the two most common forms of breast cancer, both of which rely on estrogen to fuel their growth and have been treated similarly in the past, are actually genetically distinct from one another.

Well, for more on this, I'm joined by Dr. Harold Varmus. He's director of the National Cancer Institute. The institute helped to lead the work as part of a larger project to map genetic changes in cancer.

Dr. Varmus, thank you for being here.

DR. HAROLD VARMUS, National Cancer Institute: My pleasure.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, tell us what is significant about what you found about these four types of breast cancer.

HAROLD VARMUS: Well, these four types have actually been known for some time based on work done nearly a decade ago that was intent on characterizing which genes were off and on in breast cancer types.

And to the surprise of many, it was possible to form four large groups that most breast cancers could fit into.

What these studies show -- and they are part of a much larger effort that the Cancer Institute and the Human Genome Institute are carrying out on many different types of cancer -- is that by using a variety of new techniques to sequence the genome, to count the number of copies of genes, to look at which genes are being read out and which proteins are being made, that we can begin to look at the heterogeneity of these four groups and define certain commonalities within the groups that give us -- will give us some insight into which therapies are most appropriate and what kind of new therapies might be envisioned.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, is this telling you that the genetic markings are more important than just about any other distinction to these breast cancers?

I mean, we mentioned...

HAROLD VARMUS: Well, in general, all cancers have been traditionally characterized by the way they appear under the microscope and the organs in which they arise.

But as we learn more and more about cancer of every type, including breast, what we learn is that the drivers of cancer are mainly mutations and changes in chromosome organization or numbers of copies of genes, and that those are the instruments that drive a cancer and therefore become ways of categorizing cancer, ways of designing new therapies that specifically target those changes, and markers for knowing whether or not these cancers will respond to conventional existing therapies.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, was this a shocking piece of information?

HAROLD VARMUS: It wasn't shocking, no.

We have been going through many kinds of cancers, and many more are to come within this large study.

And what we're trying to do is to create a warehouse, a compendium of information. The project is called the Cancer Genome Atlas.

It's an atlas, a warehouse, a storehouse, a database which everyone is free to look at, because all this information is being made publicly available.

If you go to our website and look at the Cancer Genome Atlas, you will see the information. You can -- all these papers are freely accessible to everyone.

And the point is that we know that every time we approach a cancer with these technologies and look at many hundreds of individual cancers of a certain traditional grouping, like pancreatic cancer or liver cancer or gastric cancer or breast and other cancers that have been published, that we're going to see interesting patterns.

Every cancer looks different. Every cancer has similarities to other cancers. And we're trying to milk those differences and similarities to do a better job of predicting how things are going to work out and making new drugs.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And how will that affect the treatment of these cancers? I mean, do you already know how that might happen, or is that just...

HAROLD VARMUS: Well, we have an idea.

First of all, there is the long-range view that, as we understand exactly what's wrong, we will make targeted therapies that are specific for cancers that have certain kinds of genetic aberrations.

But even in the more immediate future, it's going to be possible to put together our understanding, our description of the genetic changes in a cancer and the responses to existing therapies. And that's the piece that we still miss.

And one way in which I believe that patients who have cancer now and are being treated now can make a major contribution to the development of more effective and more accurate treatment, using existing therapies.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, this -- you're saying this could make a difference in the very near future?

HAROLD VARMUS: In the next few years. It is not going to change practice overnight.

Some of the ideas that are in this paper, the connection you mentioned between some of the genetic changes seen in a certain particularly severe from a breast cancer and ovarian cancer, for example, suggest that those cancers have an instability in their genome that can be addressed with some existing therapies. And those therapies are being tested now in those breast cancer patients.

But what remains to be figured out is how we get the clinical information together with the genetic information in the kind of database that we can all use to begin to predict who is going to respond to which drugs.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And why is that as hard as it is? What would make that easier?

HAROLD VARMUS: Well, in part because it's hard to get the clinical information into a form that can be put into a database that is interpretable.

Some of this is a matter of learning how to massage the data so we make the correlations that are truly helpful.

The second is that we need to overcome a reluctance to provide personal clinical information and genetic information to a database that will help others, to provide the right kinds of consent forms and privacy protections that allow this all to happen.

And I would urge patients who have cancer now to think of themselves as information donors who can benefit not just others who will have cancer later, but themselves over the next few years.

Because cancer patients are living longer and better lives, thanks to better symptom control, more effective therapies, and a deeper understanding of cancer that has come about through research over the last decade.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, finally, just to broaden this out, what are your hopes, Dr. Varmus, for this larger genetic study of all kinds of cancer?

HAROLD VARMUS: Well, I believe that we are going to have a much deeper appreciation of what kinds of abnormalities in cancer cells and in the surrounding cells that feed and respond to cancers are vulnerabilities that will allow us to make better predictions of which kinds of drugs will work to treat these cancers.

They also become markers that allow or enable early detection. They become signposts for thinking about what the environmental causes of cancer might be and for thinking about how we can prevent cancers more effectively.

But this is not just all about treatment. And we need to think imaginatively about how we prevent cancers, which is the ultimate goal.

JUDY WOODRUFF: It must be very exciting for you.

HAROLD VARMUS: Well, it's a difficult problem that we think we're making great progress against these days. And it is an affirmation of the importance of medical research to the nation.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Dr. Harold Varmus, we thank you very much for being here.

HAROLD VARMUS: Pleasure. Thanks.

 

 

Research Has Revealed That Turmeric Is A Natural Wonder

The active ingredient in turmeric is curcumin. Tumeric has been used for over 2500 years in India, where it was most likely first used as a dye.

The medicinal properties of this spice have been slowly revealing themselves. Over the centuries we have discovered that Turmeric has intense anti-inflammatory properties. Further. recent research has revealed that turmeric is a natural wonder, proving beneficial in the treatment of many different health conditions from cancer to Alzheimer's disease. I am personally impressed by the research but read and determine for yourself.

Here are 20 reasons to add turmeric to your diet:

 1. It is a natural antiseptic and antibacterial agent, useful in disinfecting cuts and burns.

2. When combined with cauliflower, it has shown to prevent prostate cancer and stop the growth of existing prostate cancer.

3. Prevented breast cancer from spreading to the lungs in mice.

4. May prevent melanoma and cause existing melanoma cells to commit suicide.

5. Reduces the risk of childhood leukemia.

6. Is a natural liver detoxifier.

7. May prevent and slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease by removing amyloyd plaque buildup in the brain.

8. May prevent metastases from occurring in many different forms of cancer.9. It is a potent natural anti-inflammatory that works as well as many anti-inflammatory drugs but without the side effects.

10. Has shown promise in slowing the progression of multiple sclerosis in mice.

11. Is a natural painkiller and cox-2 inhibitor.

12. May aid in fat metabolism and help in weight management.

13. Has long been used in Chinese medicine as a treatment for depression.

14. Because of its anti-inflammatory properties, it is a natural treatment for arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.

15. Boosts the effects of chemo drug paclitaxel and reduces its side effects.

16. Promising studies are underway on the effects of turmeric on pancreatic cancer.

17. Studies are ongoing in the positive effects of turmeric on multiple myeloma.

18. Has been shown to stop the growth of new blood vessels in tumors.

19. Speeds up wound healing and assists in remodeling of damaged skin.

20. May help in the treatment of psoriasis and other inflammatory skin conditions.

 

Turmeric can be taken in powder or pill form. It is available in pill form in most health food stores, usually in 250-500mg capsules.

Once you start using turmeric on a regular basis, it's fun to find new ways to use it in recipes. My favorite way to use it is to add a pinch of it to egg salad. It adds a nice flavor and gives the egg salad a rich yellow hue.

Contraindications: Turmeric should not be used by people with gallstones or bile obstruction. Though turmeric is often used by pregnant women, it is important to consult with a doctor before doing so as turmeric can be a uterine stimulant.

Careful Ladies..The Things Nobody Wants To Talk About

 

Here are the 3 most common conditions to watch out for:-

 1. Bacterial Vaginosis – the most common vaginal infection and most common cause of abnormal discharge. Left untreated BV may be associated with pelvic inflammatory disease, which can result in reduced fertility and also increase the risk of contracting certain Sexually Transmitted Infections, including HIV. Once diagnosed correctly, it can be treated with antibiotics. Alternatively Balance Activ gel is the leading over the counter treatment to treat and prevent BV.

BV is the most common vaginal infection and is almost twice as common as thrush yet research has shown that only, 49% of women have heard of BV while 91% have heard of thrush.

 Problems ‘down there’ have always been a taboo subject that people squirm at the mere mention of. This is largely down to the fact that vaginal infections usually have undesirable symptoms. Take the symptoms of BV for example, a grey watery discharge and an abnormal fishy odour that is often stronger after sex - who wants to talk about that over their latte.
 2. Cystitis – the main symptom of which is a burning pain when passing urine. The underlying cause should be diagnosed correctly but it is very easily treated with antibiotics or over the counter treatments, but left untreated it can lead to kidney infections.

 3. Thrush – women commonly experience vaginal itching, a white, ‘cottage cheese-like’ discharge and soreness, which may also be experienced during sex. It can be easily treated with an oral medication, a vaginal pessary or anti- thrush cream such as Canesten (clotrimazole). However, recurrent thrush should be investigated further, to rule out conditions such as diabetes.

Edgar Cayce 1877 – 1945 Edgar Cayce, Clairvoyant, Healer

Edgar Cayce was born near Beverly, seven miles south of Hopkinsville,USA , March 18, 1877.

During his lifetime he was credited with assisting thousands of people suffering from all manner of ailments. But there was also a lesser known aspect to Cayce's psychic revelations. Occasionally while in a self-induced trance, Cayce would speak of events to come. He predicted the First and Second World War, the independence of India and the 1929 stockmarket crash. He also predicted, fifteen years before the event, the creation of the State of Israel. His most disturbing predictions, however, concern vast geographical upheavals which by the year 2009 will result in the destruction of New York, the disappearance of most of Japan, and a cataclysmic change in Northern Europe

Though Cayce died more than half a century ago, the timeliness of the material in the readings is evidenced by approximately one dozen biographies and more than 300 titles that discuss various aspects of this man's life and work. These books contain a corpus of information so valuable that even Edgar Cayce himself might have hesitated to predict their impact on the latter part of the twentieth century. Sixty years ago who could have known that terms such as "meditation," "akashic records," "spiritual growth," "auras," "soul mates," and "holism" would become household words to hundreds of thousands? Further details about his life and work are explored in such classic works as There Is a River (1942) by Thomas Sugrue, The Sleeping Prophet (1967) by Jess Stearn, Many Mansions (1950) by Gina Cerminara, and Edgar Cayce-An American Prophet (2000) by Sidney Kirkpatrick.

In 1907, Edgar and his wife suffered major setbacks with two studio fires that devastated the business. Their first child, a son, Hugh Lynn, was also born that year. Edgar moved to Alabama to look for photographic work while Gertrude returned to Hopkinsville with Hugh Lynn.

During this time, Edgar's father, Leslie, introduced Edgar to Dr. Wesley Ketchum, who was new to the town suffering from an ailment diagnosed as appendicitis. Edgar did a reading for Ketchum, and gave forth a totally different diagnosis and treatment which proved to be correct and cured the doctor.

Because of this, Ketchum went to Cayce for his most difficult cases. In 1910, Ketchum submitted a paper about Edgar Cayce's amazing talent to the American Society of Clinical Research. News about Edgar's psychic talent traveled fast. Edgar moved back home to be with his family and with Ketchum, his father, and a hotel owner formed the Psychic Reading Corporation. Edgar was able to reopen a photographic studio and did readings in his spare time. He was at his happiest when he was his is photographic studio.

They had a second son, Milton Porter in 1911. Unfortunately, he died within two months, Edgar bitterly regretting not doing a reading for his own son until it was too late, to affect a cure for the infant. Gertrude fell seriously ill soon after for several months. When her diagnosis was changed to TB and death imminent, Edgar went into his sleep-like trance and did a reading with a treatment for his wife. Within a few days she was showing incredible improvement and within a few weeks fully recovered.

In 1912, Edgar dissolved his partnership and returned to Alabama and was able to purchase the same studio he had worked not long before. There, in Selma, Alabama, Edgar was able to achieve some of the normal life he so craved with his family and love for photography. That is, until a horrible accident almost claimed the eye and sight of his first born son, Hugh Lynn.

Hugh Lynn was in the studio playing with flash powder and severely burned his eyes. Doctors did what they could and told the Cayce’s that he would be permanently blind and that they wanted to remove one of his eyes. Edgar went into his trance and did a reading, stating his son's sight was not lost, and prescribed a means of treating his son's eyes and to not perform the surgery. Soon, Hugh Lynn's eyesight returned. News of this went like wildfire and Edgar's fame increased, with more requests for readings of all kinds came pouring in from all over. In 1918, the Cayce’s welcomed another son, Edgar Evans.

In 1923, Cayce began to add readings about reincarnation/astrology to his medical and physical readings. This caused him some inner turmoil with his strict Christian faith. He consulted others and his beloved bible, then realized how the idea and philosophy of reincarnation was compatible with Christianity and many other faiths. So, Cayce began life readings which expanded from the medical and physical to mental, spiritual, meditation, past lives and even dream interpretations.

In 1925, the Cayces moved to Virginia Beach.

In 1927, the Association of National Investigators was formed. The purpose of this association was to explore and experiment with the information obtained in Cayce's readings. The motto was "That We May Make Manifest Our Love for God and Man."

In 1928, a hospital and an university was opened by the newly formed association to assist with the seemingly unorthodox treatments that doctors over the years were hesitant to treat after Cayce's readings. Such treatments were unknown and unheard of in his day. With the Great Depression that began in 1929, the hospital was unable to continue operating and closed its doors 1931 with the university closing a few months later.

In 1931, the Association for Research and Enlightenment, Inc. (A.R.E.) was formed and still exists to this very day. The association was formed for delving into and trying to understand the readings done by Cayce. The Association delves into Holistic health care, along with ESP and meditation, life after death, reincarnation and spiritualism. According to Cayce, if a person became more spiritual, they would be able to achieve a higher level and find their own psychic abilities "for psychic is of the soul." Cayce wanted people to incorporate and interpret the readings into their own religious beliefs.

Over the years, Cayce was able to achieve the same readings in a waking state and not having to completely go to sleep. He also developed the ability to see peoples' auras, and incorporated this ability for their mental and physical conditions within the readings.

A biography was written by a strict Catholic, Thomas Sugrue, who came to Cayce to debunk him, but ended up being a devote believer of Cayce and his abilities. During World War II, bags of mail full of requests for Cayce's help piled up. There was over two years worth of readings contained in those mail sacks.

In 1944, Cayce began to weaken. He actually gave himself his own reading with his wife, Gertrude, at his side recording the session. She had begun to record his sessions a few years before. Gertrude asked Cayce how long he had to live and Cayce answered "until he is well or dead." Not long afterward, he had a stroke and died on January 3, 1945.

There are over 14,000 readings cataloged and took over twenty years after his death to finish the indexing and cataloging them with over 10,000 different subjects. Hugh Lynn worked with the Association until his death in 1986. A.R.E. now has thousands of members all over the world.

NEW TEST FOR BREAST CANCER

 

Sandy Berger

A new test for breast cancer is now being used in addition to mammography. This is especially important for women with dense breast tissue or a family history of breast cancer.
Mammography has long been the standard for detecting breast cancer in its early stages, however dense breast tissue can make tumors difficult to find. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, women with dense breast tissue are five times more likely to develop breast cancer.

Now a new type of ultrasound treatment, the Acuson S2000 Automated Breast Volume Scanner (ABVS), may help find what traditional mammography misses. In fact, a study published in 2008 found that adding a screening ultrasound examination to routine mammography revealed 28 percent more cancers than mammography alone. Recently FDA approved, ABVS is the world's first multi-use automated breast volume ultrasound system.

This diagnostic tool provides a three dimensional view of the breast, allowing physicians to analyze the breast from front to back, top to bottom, and side to side; detecting even a small beginning of cancer. The system is also more comfortable for the patient because it's non claustrophobic and radiation free

Are You MOM Enough

By Dr. Charlotte Faircloth

 Health, Notebook - A selection of Independent views -, Opinion

Friday, 18 May 2012 at 4:00 am

Much ink has already been spilled on the recent, controversial, TIME magazine cover which features a photograph of a 26-year-old, white, American woman breastfeeding her three-year-old son, with the tag line ‘Are you Mom Enough?’

 Some advocates have said that this is brilliant for the promotion of ‘Attachment Parenting’ (AP; the style of parenting which endorses ‘full-term’ breastfeeding, co-sleeping and baby-wearing, as part of a philosophy of long-term parent-child  proximity profiled in the magazine). Other advocates have said that this sensationalizes the issue, and makes an antagonistic spectacle out of what should be seen as normal, appropriate way to care for a child. But what does the cover – and the reactions to it – tell us about parenting culture more broadly?

 Academics have noted for some time that that how people feed their children (or where they sleep, how they are carried, or any one of a number of day-to-day activities) has become a very moralised affair, both in the US and the UK. In what is termed a ‘risk-culture’, feeding might be said to be the most moralised of these activities, having particular ramifications for mothers in cultures where ‘breast’ is so strongly promoted as ‘best’. Rather than being seen as a personal decision, these choices about how we care for our children are seen as something much more significant than just pragmatic. They are increasingly linked to wider social problems by policy makers and advocacy groups – such as recidivism or obesity – and are seen as a signal about a parent’s own social responsibility, and one’s dedication to one’s child (being ‘Mom Enough’).

Yet, although they have the backing of policy (the WHO advocates breastfeeding for ‘up to two years or beyond’) many mothers who practice AP feel stigmatised, with people questioning their motivation. In a statistical minority, they are at the opposite end of the spectrum to mothers who might feel guilty about using formula milk in the early months, but are subject to the same pervasive culture, which politicises these personal choices. What was so irksome about the TIME cover, then, was the way it played into those tedious and well-worn positions in the mummy wars. It polarised and antagonised only too successfully, by portraying the decisions we make about how we care for our children as a matter of individual choice.

Yet the decisions we make about this are much more to do with government policies around working parents, advice over what constitutes good nutrition or what our societies think gender relationships should look like.  (Lisa Belkin makes this point very well in in the Huffington Post). People make decisions about how they parent according to a huge amount of factors. There might be other children to care for, no parental leave provision, and no partner to support the other whilst they take time out of work: these factors can make being an ‘attachment’ parent more difficult. The idea we are all free to make the decisions we would want to, or that those who don’t make the same ones as us are selfish or misguided is disingenuous. It’s also a way of individualising wider social inequalities, by implying that parents (mothers) are solely responsible for how their children turn out.

But it’s also more than that. The idea that we would all make the decision to parent in an ‘attachment’ way, were we able to do so, is also very simplistic. Many advocates of attachment parenting argue that modern culture has interfered with our evolutionarily designed, optimal, instinctive style of care (or a ‘hominid blueprint’ of ‘full-term’ breastfeeding, co-sleeping and so on). The argument – made most notably by Katharine Dettwyler, the US biological anthropologist – is that humans, like any other mammal, are designed to breastfeed their children for ‘anything between 2.5 and 7 years old’. She comes to this conclusion by comparing various physiological factors (length of gestation, age of first molar and so forth) with archaeological and anthropological studies of ‘primitive’ humans – whether those from the past, or those who are understood to represent that past today, such as contemporary hunter-gatherer groups. (Clearly, this also taps into the wider social trend we have in the UK and the US for all things ‘natural,’ an interesting social phenomenon in itself).

The problem with this is that actually, whilst mammals can breastfeed for an extended period of time, this doesn’t mean that they actually do (or should, but more on that below). Indeed, primate weaning is characterised by flexibility – when resources are bountiful, primates tend to wean earlier, so that they can invest their energies in reproducing more young, or in other activities. The idea that early weaning is somehow ‘not natural’ is simply not right. Similarly, those hunter-gatherer societies that apparently did, or do, breastfeed for extended periods tell us more about the conditions they were living under at the time, rather than the ‘ideal state’ for all humans. In fact, looking back at the development of societies, there seems to be a trend away from this ‘primitive’ model, which is arguably a fantasy of the privileged (how many women in these mythical ‘African villages’ would not welcome running water, health care, pain relief or any one of a number of ‘modern’ inventions?) The idea that the manipulation of our environment is somehow ‘artificial’ (and therefore bad) is a very two-dimensional view of evolution: in fact, finding ‘best fit’ is what adaptation has always been about.

Some advocates talk about this style of parenting being what ‘feels right’ to them – which is a much more powerful argument, if also a culturally constrained one: what ‘feels right’ to some people, will feel very different to others, so trying to advocate on this basis can be quite problematic. Bodies are experienced, and celebrated in a range of ways across time and space. What’s more, this argument can be seen as an essentialist one: what are women ‘designed’ to do and how does that match with what ‘feel is right’ to them? What are men ‘designed’ to do? And what implications does that have for our ideas about feminism, or sexual and gender equality? How do we explain why we enjoy using our bodies in ways we might not be ‘designed’ to do?

The other problem with the idea that we would all do what was ‘best’ for our children, if only we could, is that much of the evidence about the various ways of caring for children is speculative and inconclusive. Indeed, recently, several scholars (such as Joan Wolf in her recent book Is Breast Best?) have questioned whether – in a developed context – breastfeeding is really all it is crept up to be, when compared with formula feeding. There is certainly a difference, but it is much more marginal than much of the advocacy literature would suggest. And whilst there is not space to dwell on this here, suffice to say that the evidence about the benefits of long-term breastfeeding is even more inconclusive, partly because there’s a limited number of children to look at. One of the few studies done on long-term breastfed children in the US (Buckley 2001) found little more than the 38 children were in the ‘normal’ range of growth in kids.

It’s important to state at this stage that there is absolutely nothing wrong with ‘attachment parenting’ from a psychological perspective: there is no evidence that it is harmful. But nor is there evidence that it is damaging to parent in ‘non-attachment’ ways (such as, by putting the baby to sleep in its own cot, or similar). Indeed, it is very hard to separate out correlation from causation when assessing parenting styles. That middle class children tend to do better than poorer children, and since AP seems to be a trend amongst very well educated women, who are usually (though not always) well-moneyed, or supported by a partner,makes it hard to separate out the causal factor at play. For example, whilst there was a study in 1981 by Gulick, which agued that that long-term breastfed kids get ill less, this might be as much to do with the fact that they were not in childcare (and close to multiple sources of infection) as much as because of the immunological agents in breastmilk.

The list goes on – there are lots of arguments made by AP advocates about the psychological benefits of AP, based both on the arguments of psychologist John Bowlby, and more recent neuroscientfic studies. Each of these bodies of evidence are problematic, because of their leap between extreme cases of neglect and everyday activities of parenting as discussed here. An important point too is that however conclusive any ‘science’ is about the best way of raising the healthiest children, parenting is not a science, and science should not dictate what we do with our children. As above, there are numerous other factors that need to be taken into account about what works for us, and for our families, beyond the purported brain development or psychological attachment benefits to our child. A myopic perspective can be deeply unhelpful to new parents, who will be made unnecessarily anxious about these implications, which are often spurious in any case.

Attachment parenting, for many people, is great – and they absolutely find that it works for them and their families. But the suggestion here is that if one does not parent in an attachment way, one is somehow lacking, and not ‘Mom enough.’ This is, in part, one of the problems with when personal decisions about how we parent are made into social movements: AP is not just about how I want to raise my children, but ideas about how children should be brought up in general (and, whilst one can understand that advocates are on the defensive, this is a very serious problem indeed). Our own motivations and justifications can very easily become evangelical proscriptions. On AP international’s web site, they state:

“Through education, support, advocacy and research, our principal goal is to heighten global awareness of the profound significance of secure attachment – not only to invest in our children’s bright futures, but to reduce and ultimately prevent emotional and physical mistreatment of children, addiction, crime, behavioral disorders, mental illness, and other outcomes of early unhealthy attachment”

These sort of statements (which are equally common in policy documents in the UK today) put the cause for most of society’s ills at the door of parents. And once one accepts that parents are ‘responsible’ for everything, it then makes it difficult to object when one’s own parenting choices are put under the microscope.

What academics might suggest is that we need to firmly reject the notion that parenting is the source of, or the solution to, these complex societal issues. Instead, it might be more helpful to cool the debate down by recognizing that this is more than about individual choice. It is a very sad thing that there has been such a tribalisation of parents, as bringing up children (in the US and the UK, in particular) can be a very socially isolated time. These questions need to be de-politicised and people need to be supported to care for their children as works best for them and their families, not as how policy makers, advocacy groups or media outlets think best.

Dr Charlotte Faircloth is a research fellow at the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies, at the University of Kent. She discussed the recent TIME magazine cover on Channel Four News over the weekend