This kind of stuff is just way too crazy to not be based on real life. And here’s where I don’t really side with the militant breastfeeding brigade. If it works, great. Yes, it’s ‘nature’s way,’ and it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than formula, but the brigade swears up and down that all women can breastfeed, with ease, and produce enough milk to feed a million babies. When they can’t.
And I know I’m likely going to get a member of the brigade writing in the comments saying “Yes, ALL women can breastfeed with ease, and if they can’t, they haven’t had the proper training, or they just aren’t trying hard enough,” but you know what? No. My wife tried. Hard. And it didn’t work with the first kid very well. On the second kid, it worked, but it required so much dedication (feeding every hour or two, even at night, for three months) that it almost killed her.
How come no one is campaigning and saying, “Hey, you know what’s best for baby? Having a mother who is NOT terminally sleep-deprived and going out of her f#$@ing mind!” No one says that. Except me. I say that.
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I’m so glad I stayed up to read this.
God, I love Daphne’s shirt! x
I’m glad it was worth the lack of sleep. You’ll hopefully get a better view of Daphne’s shirt next week. I was proud of this one.
I keep wondering why there’s always a little black spot in the middle of her shirt.
And, then I realize, it’s her cleavage!
She’s our little Daphne! She can’t have boobs!!
They grow up so fast… 🙁
Yeah, more like my slight inability to depict the human form in pen and ink. Sometimes I draw lines where there shouldn’t be.
AMEN!!!! I tried for 2 weeks to breast feed with a newborn who was tongue tied… He literally broke apart my nipple and caused a bacterial infection which almost killed me. I lost DIED because of BFing and this BF nazi’s still think I didn’t try hard enough. Kudos to your wife- I went 2 months more pumping only 4 oz a day (12 pumps a day).
I’m so traumatized I refuse to ever try again. The pain, the mental and emotional anguish…. Screw it. NOT worth it
Yes, but to the brigade, dying is a lesser evil than formula. They’re cracked. Nursing is great if it works, but it’s the psychological torment and bullying they put women through when it doesn’t work that I take exception to.
Yes. Formula before death. It sounds so rational that in fact it MUST be irrational!!!!
They love to make up rational-sounding crazy junk. Really they do.
My wife wrote an article about her experience with breast-feeding at the hospital, and the kindest thing you could say is that the paper didn’t spontaneously burst into flames. She was LIVID when we realized that the hospital had sent us home with a baby who refused to nurse and NO WAY TO FEED THE BABY! No “Bottle starter kit”, no nada! 10PM at night, with a hungry crying baby and ALL THE STORES WERE CLOSED! The only reason we didn’t sue them was because my wife simply could not handle dealing with a lawyer, too.
We were lucky in that we have a great family doctor who was very reasonable in his outlook. And to its credit, the hospital did provide formula and assistance with that. They just made sure to put you through the emotional wringer before providing it. It sounds like your scenario was worse.
That’s quite reversal from the time several decades ago when they looked at those who wanted to nurse as unsophisticated hicks.
Our experience was in the middle. They recommended breast-feeding, but didn’t push it.
Well, if you had a moderate experience, that’s awesome. They’re so rare anymore.
And that is why if I had my way and had a nice money bin or two, I get a wet nurse for my theoretical wife. Unfortunately, I have neither, and I don’t even know how to find a qualified woman to provide milk for such a future offspring. Probably my kids will just have to live off the formula just like I did since the noble institution of wet nurse has been so maligned.
In fact, I’d say for the Breast Feeding Mafia that they obvious answer is to go into wet nursing. As they say, do what you love.
Bring on the wet nurses, I agree. They’re so nursing happy, and they usually go on about how wonderfully successful they were at it, well… The answer is obvious. Though I think that option would be even MORE poverty-inducing than formula.
I’m so sick of this breast-feeding mafia. I was adopted in 1963, one year after my birth. I was always fed on formula. Geez, maybe the formula back then was better, I don’t know. But the fact is, I’m a smart, high-IQ, healthy human being. And I was never breast fed. Go figure.
Exactly. There’s not a single medical professional who can point to an adult and tell you whether that person was formula-fed or breastfed.
1. You’re pre-selecting those who lived to adulthood.
2. I’m surprised you would put forth an argument for anecdotal evaluation when you clearly understand that anecdotal evidence is not evidence at all.
Btw, I was raised on formula, and aside from a subpar immune system, I turned out okay.
Well, I’m going to throw myself behind your own anecdotal evidence and say that you stand as living proof of formula’s greatness. As for the subpar immune system, I’m going to go and randomly blame that on television.
I find it ironic that on one hand you call for moderation, but at the same time seem to stubbornly refuse *any* health benefit from breast feeding 🙂
Current understanding of the formation of the gut microbiota and immune system appears to support empirical knowledge on that matter. OTOH, for all I know, just *some* breastfeeding should do perfectly fine on this score — I don’t see any good reason to insist on breastfeeding *only*… See, that’s what a moderate opinion looks like 😉
If I see a moderate opinion, I want it shot and stuffed! No moderation here! We’re talking about breastfeeding here!
Not your best work possibly your worst it is the only one I do not find funny
Its only going to be really funny for the people that have been there this round, I think.
This one seems to have struck a chord with actual mothers who have been through this experience. It’s probably decidedly less engaging for people who haven’t lived this experience.
I’m a single male, and I thought the punchline (and the look on Puck’s face) was hilarious.
Good to know it’s not totally broken.
Well, they can’t all be winners, I guess.
Bravo! The BreastFeeding Mafia shall and probably already has been mobilized but the shining awesomeness that is Daphne’s shirt is keeping them at bay. I don’t think I was given a about Breastfeeding, the nurse said,” Here’s your baby” and deposited her on my chest. She promptly opened one eye, squeezed it shut, pooped on my stomach and latched on to my breast. The shrieking and flailing of her mother obviously having a nervous breakdown did nothing to dislodge her.
Hey, if it worked that easily, despite your somewhat crazed state, then that’s awesome. I think that sometimes it really sort of depends on the baby. Some babies just sort of know what to do, even when the mother doesn’t.
I agree, there needs to be a balance seeing as the thing is, prolonged sleep deprivation stresses the immune system as you need 6 to 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night to stay mentally and physically healthy. Now, this is not easy with a baby, but forcing yourself awake every 2 hours will result in the lost of mental health which as you can guess is bad in a time like baby care. If the immune system becomes compromised, it is possible, usually due to sleep deprivation causing lowered awareness, you can spread a sickness to a child that could result in many things including death.
Agreed. The great thing about bottle-feeding, or even bottle-supplementing, is the fact that dad can do every other feeding. That is a life-saver when the kid needs to eat every two hours. Now each parent can get four hours of sustained sleep at a time, and though it doesn’t sound like a huge improvement, it’s the difference between mere crabbiness and sheer insanity.
My niece sleeps with her baby, which makes late night nursing a whole lot more convenient. She doesn’t even have to wake up all the way.
Works for her. We had a crib.
Now, we look at people with little ones and smile. No more diapers. No more accessory bag. No more chasing toddlers. No more diapers. No more baby car seats. No more 2:00 feedings.
Oh, yeah, did I mention? No more diapers.
Older children are way easier than babies. WAY easier. Sometimes people lie and say “Well, you trade one set of problems for another,” but really? It’s way easier.
My mother’s breast milk was poison to us. It was like a mild allergic reaction with the first and got progressively worse with each child; she had four of us, I was the second one born. By the time my little brother was born her milk was toxic to him and he had to be fed by a wet nurse and then by formula.
Me on the other hand, with my first child I didn’t have enough milk to feed her and she got switched to formula pretty quick but with my second child, I could have been used as a dairy cow. Each one of my breasts could have easily fed four kids. I was so glad when I finally stopped producing milk.
Weird. But there you go: each case is different. The line, “It always works when done right” is a fallacy. When it does, work, though, it can be a great thing.
I think Puck will run dry sometime before the kid is in college…
Well, not if she keeps up the feedings. Though that’s a whole other rant that I don’t want to get into…
Nine, ten years, tops.
Let’s hope, anyway.
heh
A friend of mine joked that it’s time to wean when the kid verbally requests the left or right breast.
My mother says that I weaned myself at nine months. I think that hurt her feelings. Sorry, Mom.
I second your friend.
I apparently didnt have enough fat in my milk. While the whole ‘every two hours’ thing is great in theory, i had more than one kid. I told the lactation freaks to bug off and went with the pediatrician. He told me to pump when I could, and go with formula for the rest.
A sane voice from the medical community is sometimes all it takes to provide an ounce of common sense into the matter. Our family doctor was great in that regard. He openly admitted that the entire matter was way too charged and political, and going with what worked (and kept baby happily gaining weight) was the way to go.
One hurdle is that the majority (in the US at least) are chronically dehydrated. Lactation demands extra hydration, if you’re dehydrated your milk will dry up almost immediately. Physical and emotional stress is also bad – so yeah… the BF mafia isn’t helping.
It’s just backlash from the years where the hospitals would actively sabotage mothers attempts to nurse, because it made more work for the nurses.
The other problem (in the US again) is that one of the best galactagogues around was disapproved by the FDA. It’s sold OTC in other lands as a digestive aid. o.O
It’s very true that much of what we see is a backlash from the ‘formula is best’ years. That was a stinky time too. Why oh why can’t the medical community (and humanity in general) manage moderation instead of ridiculous extremes?
I was lucky enough to be born into a military family. The US military isn’t exactly a pushover when it comes to pet theories and such.
According to my mother, all she had to do was raise her voice once after I was born (I was the first) and the BF mafia never approached again (and I had two sisters). Interesting, it seems the women who are NOT pushed into BF seem to be best at it due to less stress, though they definitely need more hydration.
BTW, my dad was only a corporal when I was born, so rank had no bearing on the deal.
Well, that makes sense. The BF brigade only shoots metaphorical daggers. The military shoots real bullets.
My sisters Joy Gloria and I were all bottle fed.
Yeah…I didn’t wanna say in front of everybody, but Puck could start bottlefeeding…
Nothing wrong with that, man. Nothing wrong with that.
Puck needs to feed her baby any way she can. If she needs to supplement, so be it.
“Moo.”
– Puck, Ancient Fairy of Lore, New mother, after being lectured by Brogdoslavian lactation professional.
Best, line, ever.
It’s really the only line one can say in such a situation.
I think this ‘lady’ needs some of what Puck gave the doctor.
Don’t worry. She’ll get what’s coming to her. Though it won’t be in the form of a knuckle sandwich. That method of solving problems has been overused as of late. We’re going to get creative with this one.
Characters should weep and flee and gnash their teeth when their creator says he’s about to “get creative”. 😀
Well, let’s not get too excited lest I disappoint.
My guess is the consultant gets comically dragged off-comic by say…. Satan and then a dose of seeing hell enough to make a person’s hair do an Einstein and turn white.
Puck, ancient faerie of Lore, sums up a whole bundle of complex emotions and worries in just one word! :p
This is comic offensive, immoral, and highly entertaining. I don not like it.
You found me. I don’t know how you found me, but you found me. RUN FOR IT, MARTY!!!!
Doc? When did you take the place of Gecko?
I related news, I just got the Lego Delorean from Back to the Future. The car design is not perfect, unfortunately (though they did a decent job at that scale). The minifigs, though, are priceless. The Marty minifig has two expressions, and both are so quintessentially Michael J. Fox. It’s uncanny.
While Lego is great when it comes to doing licensed toys, I find fan made creations have far more attention to detail. I’ve seen some awesome fan renditions of the Millennium Falcon made of Lego bricks, and I made a pretty good gizmoduck (from Duck Tales) as a kid, too.
I hope this Nazi makes Puck’s s##t list.
That being said, these colors remain awesome as always, EG.
I curse these colors, I tell ya! Curse ’em! My crazy super-neon RGB color scheme is coming back to bite me now that I’m actively considering doing a print run. These colors cannot be effectively put on paper. WHAT HAVE I DONE???
You’ll just have to go for the super expensive, glossy white paper.
Yeah, that’s probably the idea. Which basically means my only option is to go with a low-cost Chinese printer. They offer that kind of thing at cost-efficient rates. We’ll have to see whether I can pull this off or not.
Okay, things to latch onto for a man who will be unable to sire children…
Daphne’s shirt is one thing; a reference to the Suburban Commando, which was reviewed by the Nostalgia Critic, which became a running gag for the (current and former) members of Channel Awesome. I love hearing that gag in the Spoony Experiment, which is pretty much the only main TGWTG person I still watch (despite the fact that he left TGWTG, but I digress.)
The other one is that you finally changed changed the shoulder where Puck’s hospital gown fell off in the final panel, though in this case, it is justified.
I’m happy with this Daphne shirt. You need to see the (currently obscured) graphic under the text. It’ll (hopefully) be visible in the next comic. And yeah. Changing shoulders comes with nursing a kid. Can’t have uneven nursing going on. Gets seriously painful when there’s a milk build-up on one side.
Apparently, breast feeding a child reduces the mother’s later risk of cancer.
1994: http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199401133300201
2013: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/264796.php
Breastfeeding also has some other beneficial aspects. For instance, it allows a mother to continue to pass on her immune system to the child until the child’s immune system kicks on a few months after birth, so it can help prevent the baby getting really sick a month after birth.
If it didn’t work for you two, even with coaching and expert advice, then it didn’t work — don’t beat yourself up about it. 🙂
I’d say the breastfeeding brigade sent you, but you’re too ‘live and let live’ for them to ever have accepted you. You may pass…
Breastfeeding uses up a couple thousand calories a day. Good way to get rid of those extra pounds (or kilograms.)
And there are plenty of reasons beyond just it’s painful or you don’t have enough milk. I knew a woman who placed her daughter in an open adoption and breastfed the first few days… She ended up with an infection about 3 weeks later merely because her milk came in and then proceeded to get backed up.
Breastfeeding is great IF you have enough milk and IF you’re planning on being there 24/7 it’s not fair to get all nazi on birthmom’s and surrogates (really same thing)
An ounce of reason and understanding goes a long way, I’d say.
Breast feeding in a web comic?
Did web comics just grow up or something?
If my work ever qualifies as ‘grown up,’ I think something’s really wrong with the world.
Grown sideways?
That works. If anyone considers it anything better than puerile claptrap, I’m happy.
‘Puerile claptrap’ sounds delightful. I want to use that phrase as often as I can.
You’re free to!
Ahh, the lactation —-s. Man, I hated those b_tches. I got up in one of there faces when they awoke my wife while she was suffering from a fever just after giving birth so they could make her pump. Its amazing how quickly the hospital will call off those harpies when you threaten lawsuits.
They can get … aggressive. Which sometimes requires counter-aggression. But this is one of those ‘you have to live it to get it’ experiences, I think.
Moooooooo!
(snicker)
I’m reminded of the CFBC (child free by choice) people calling us breeders ‘moocows.’
This was based on a real mother’s response in this situation.
So breastfeeding huh…
Well, it is hard to deny that the immune system of the newborn gains a huge advantage from breast feeding. There is enough empirical evidence that support this assumption. I myself was not breastfed, but I was lucky to live and be raised in civilized surroundings(first world specifically). And that’s the point. Many “natural” things and rites got needless after man reached the modern ages. And that is a GOOD thing. We now have things like formula. Forcing people to breastfeed could (exaggerated) be compared to forcing people to live in a cave.
Some mothers produce enough milk for the hole maternity ward and it is fine fore them to breastfeed their offspring. But if you can hardly squeeze out a single drop it is way better to use formula, because the best thing for the baby is a mother with the lowest stress level possible.
On the same page here. On. The. Same. Page.
Well, in my feeding case there is some irony to it. Actually my mother had more than enough milk to feed me. She had no problems there. I simply refused to drink it.
Well, I’m very picky with food up to this day.
But the point stands. There is no need to force these “natural” things on people. You already mentioned it in an earlier comic. This is all part of the three paths.
Exactly.
I agree about the breast feeding thing, I even have a friend who’s baby was allergic to her milk.
Boobs. Functional AND decorative. HURRAY FOR BOOBS!!!
I forgot. “MOO!”
There have been women who’d have agreed with her.
Is it just me, or has Daphne’s fur changes since Puck was in college?
And, man, it was an armchair Puck was in in the first strip, not a couch! What a low ebb.
Daphne’s fur has changed a bit. Basically I realized that too many jagged fur lines were distracting. So I smoothed the profile considerably. The odd like of fur still shows up, but it’s lessened.
I meant more the color, but yeah, I suppose it’s part of growing up and getting better shampoo.
Colour should be the same, but my method of exporting did change over time, so … maybe?
Or, and this is a real possiblity, I’m nuts.
Still, not bad work. It wasn’t a complaint.
It is a real possibility that the color grade has shifted, though. CorelDraw is, for me, notoriously weird with colors. For instance, you can set a color in RGB or CMYK with an exact value, and you can copy that value over to another field, but sometimes Draw will just change the value a little. So for instance, Phoebe’s hair highlights are slightly blue – specifically 0-0-20 on the RGB scale at their furthest tips. But for some reason, after I copy the fill over a number of times, the blueness will scale down. Draw will move the fill (for some reason) to 0-0-16, then 0-0-10, and eventually to complete black. I guess it’s trying to aim for print-friendly or screen-friendly colors? I don’t know the reason. And there may be a way to stop this, but I’ve never figured it out. So it is entirely possible that Daphne’s fur color has gradually shifted over time, all thanks to my janky art program.
All in all, though (I thought this after finishing the first reply), any color value shift pales in comparison to the dramatic sea change in Daphne’s appearance from the start of the color strips to here. And she does change a little more in the coming comics as well. Her appearance has shifted more dramatically than any other character.
Well, yeah, she’s changed. She went though puberty. That’s a lot for a person.