Breastfeeding better for planet than being a vegan

My breastfeeding efforts are enough to offset greenhouse gas emissions from the use of our family car for one year, writes Virginia Tapscott.

I have produced 1059 litres of breastmilk in just under six years of breastfeeding. Dairy cows put me to shame, taking 38 days to produce the same amount of milk, but luckily for my family and friends I am a much lower emitter than a dairy cow. I produce about 70 millilitres of methane a day, compared with a cow that produces anywhere between 250 and 500 litres of methane in a day.

This isn’t just a thought experiment; this comparison is the basis of Australian National University’s Green Feeding Tool, which is designed to help governments measure breastfeeding rates as a carbon offset. It’s leading research on how behavioural modifications can form part of our Long-Term Emissions Reduction Plan.

It’s a new chapter in improving our climate response, public health and support systems for new mothers in one fell swoop.

In addition to me being a lower emitter, my milk travels only a few metres to reach the baby in the house. Cows’ milk must travel from farm to factory, where it undergoes energy and water-intensive processing to produce powdered milk formula. It is then distributed right around the globe, travelling thousands of kilometres to countries with low rates of breastfeeding. The formula must then be heated up in bottles that are sterilised, usually with heat, over and over again.

According to the algorithms developed by ANU honorary associate professor Julie Smith, my breastfeeding efforts are enough to offset greenhouse gas emissions from the use of our family car for one year. It’s a bigger carbon offset than going vegan for 1.5 years or vegetarian for 2.5 years. It also easily offsets 144kg of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from an estimated 36kg of formula we used after weaning.

Dairy cows put me to shame on the milk front, but luckily for my family and friends I am a much lower emitter than a dairy cow.

Of course, this issue is emblematic of a wider problem with emissions-intensive food productions systems. Behavioural modifications such as veganism and sustainable dietary choices are undoubtedly on the rise. We seem willing to respond to the evidence when it comes to adult food choices, but not when it comes to babies.

The positive impacts of improving rates of breastfeeding are difficult to ignore. Research from the World Health Organisation estimates that exclusively breastfeeding all babies in Britain for the first six months would offset the use of up to 77,000 cars every year. It’s also a population control, naturally delaying the return of fertility for women and helping them space children further apart in places where access to birth control is low.

Smith also has attempted to quantify cost savings in the public health system achieved through the optimal infant nutrition breastmilk provides.

Using data from her 2002 study based on early weaning at Canberra Hospital, Smith estimates that improving breastfeeding rates could save up to $120m across the Australian hospital system. A study from the US showed breastfed babies presented at hospital less and required fewer prescriptions.

The federal Department of Health cites evidence showing breastfeeding reduces rates of gastroenteritis, ear and respiratory infections in babies, as well as reducing chronic health issues such as obesity, cancer and diabetes for both mother and baby across a lifetime. Considering the federal cost burden of obesity is $11.8bn, even a small reduction in obesity rates equates to a substantial cost saving.

This compelling case was made to a parliamentary inquiry into breastfeeding 2007. The committee recommended the development of a national strategy to improve breastfeeding rates but it failed to reverse a long-term steady decline. In Australia today only 15 per cent of babies are exclusively breastfed by six months, compared with 18 per cent in 2001. We are well below the global average of 44 per cent, and not even close to the Australian Dietary Guidelines aim of 80 per cent by 2013.

A renewed National Breastfeeding Strategy released in 2019 also has failed to achieve a more conservative goal of exclusive breastfeeding for 40 per cent of six-month-old babies by 2022.

The repeated failure to improve breastfeeding rates, despite strategies and mounting evidence of the benefits, tells us that no amount of preaching to women about the benefits of breastfeeding will improve breastfeeding rates. As long as time out of the paid workforce comes at such a significant personal cost to women, early cessation of breastfeeding will continue. Legislating paid parental leave that falls several months short of the six-month breastfeeding recommendation is a special form of stupidity.

If women lack the structural, financial and cultural support required to breastfeed, they won’t be able to do it for as long as is recommended. They will feel individually responsible for a systemic failing, adding further to the stress and pressure of parenthood. A particular sensitivity then arises in response to breastfeeding advocacy where women who weren’t able to breastfeed feel personally attacked by efforts to improve breastfeeding rates. Parents who use formula are understandably distressed by evidence emerging that continues to highlight the health risks of formula use, particularly if they were not made aware of these risks by health professionals.

“Many women who have been let down by governments refusing to invest in enabling breastfeeding and forced to supplant with formula have every right to be angry,” Smith says. “One in three leaves hospital using formula despite 96 per cent starting with breastfeeding.”

The “Fed is Best” movement has a debilitating effect on efforts to improve awareness of breastmilk as optimal infant nutrition. In a moment these three words can erase decades of evidence and absolve policymakers of accountability to better support women in their breastfeeding efforts. Rather than spending time and money to support a mother to breastfeed, we offer her a substandard quick fix and downplay the risks of not breastfeeding. We cannot treat breastfeeding like the health imperative it is unless we are committed to enabling women to do it.

ANU also has developed a tool called Mother’s Milk that measures the dollar value of human milk produced based on the market value of donor milk. It values my milk production at about $157,892. Smith hopes breastmilk may be included one day as part of the gross domestic product, estimating that the value of milk produced by Australian mothers is about $2bn a year, compared with an annual retail value of formula milk of about $135m.

These tools bring the value of breastfeeding out of the abstract and put a tangible measure on something that has been considered immeasurable. It also helps women see the real value in their unpaid and often invisible work.

Calculating the total figure of milk I had produced gave me an enormous sense of accomplishment. The blood, sweat and tears that went into learning how to breastfeed cannot be understated. I cried out of frustration and not knowing why I found it so difficult. My nipples almost fell off at one stage due to poor latching. And all my babies were born in the warmer months when nursing a baby was often sweaty work.

The early breastfeeding days were a bit of a blur but I definitely required several lactation consultants, a few late-night calls to the “help me” hotlines, a trip to the tongue tie specialist and a few appointments with a psychologist to get through. I had a revolving door of family and friends willing to help. I had extensive support networks and the financial means to acquire professional support.

Not everyone has this. Many women talk about the mental distress of breastfeeding as their reason for switching to formula. There will always be instances in which formula use is necessary, but we must accept social responsibility for the lack of support for these women. The blame for this public health and environmental failing cannot rest on individual women.

Virginia Tapscott is a freelance writer in rural NSW.