Breastfeeding in the United Arab Emirates is not optional.
In fact, moms in the UAE are required by law to breastfeed their babies for two years.
Breastmilk is liquid gold
It provides newborns not only with all the vitamins and minerals and healthy fats they need for optimal growth, it also provides them with essential antibodies that seed the immune system for life.
We know from well over a thousand peer-reviewed scientific studies, like this one, this one, and this one, that breastfeeding is the optimal form of nutrition for a human baby. Breastfeeding is also best for moms, as it confers myriad health benefits for nursing women, both physical and psychological.
Indeed, breastfed babies are less likely to succumb to both infectious diseases and chronic illnesses. They’re also at a significant neurological advantage over bottle-fed babies.
Breastfeeding is a matter of life and death. As this 2023 Irish study uncovered: “Exclusive breastfeeding for 90+ days is associated with protection against childhood morbidity.”
Encouraging exclusive breastfeeding? Yes. Forcing compliance? No
Should our federal and state health officials, as well as the doctors who care for our children, do everything they can to encourage moms to exclusively breastfeed their babies?
Absolutely.
But does the federal government have the right to force women to breastfeed their babies like they do in the United Arab Emirates?
Or should doctors dismiss families from their practices if the mom is unable or unwilling to breastfeed her baby?
Absolutely not.
Not in America, anyway.
Not if we are truly a country that believes in freedom of choice.
According to health authorities and mainstream medical doctors, there is a tremendous amount of scientific evidence that shows proves that childhood vaccines are safe, effective, and absolutely essential for all children.
These federal and state officials (many of whom, I suspect, have not actually bothered to read the science) insist that not vaccinating is a matter of life and death.
Funded in part by the pharmaceutical companies that make these vaccines, our public health agencies relentlessly advertise vaccines to new parents; shame parents who want to individualize the current vaccine schedule based on their family’s disease exposure risk, genetic susceptibilities, and medical history; and insist that unvaccinated children are a menace to society and parents who don’t vaccinate are “crackpots.”
Educated parents choose not to follow the CDC
It is a greed-driven media-driven misperception that parents who choose not to vaccinate, based on their family’s philosophical or religious beliefs, are somehow uneducated or misinformed.
In fact, most of the families who want to individualize the vaccine schedule or who choose to do no vaccines delay vaccinating their children indefinitely are continuously educating themselves.
According to an important but difficult-to-find (and rarely quoted) study of over 150,000 children published in peer-reviewed journal Pediatrics, in fact:
Unvaccinated children tended to be white, to have a mother who was married and had a college degree, to live in a household with an annual income exceeding 75,000 dollars, and to have parents who expressed concerns regarding the safety of vaccines and indicated that medical doctors have little influence over vaccination decisions for their children.
Making careful choices
These are parents who are actively assessing their family’s specific health needs. They often read the science (or the abstracts anyway) for themselves. And when they know better, they do better.
They’re also making careful choices about other things in their children’s lives, from the foods they feed their kids to the carseats they strap them into.
They aren’t selfish. But they are concerned.
In short, just like conventional-minded fully vaccinating families, vaccine-choice parents are doing their very best to keep their children safe and healthy.
Unlike in other parts of the world, in America we believe in freedom of choice, not coercion. This freedom must apply to making health decisions for our children.
We don’t mandate breastfeeding in this country. And we should not, ever, be mandating vaccines.
About the author: Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., is an award-winning science writer and Fulbright grantee. She has worked on a child survival campaign in West Africa, taught post-colonial literature to non-traditional students in Atlanta, and appeared live on prime-time television in France to champion the end of child servitude. A former contributing writer at The Epoch Times, she is also the author/editor of eight books. Support independent journalism and medical freedom by becoming a paid subscriber to her Substack, Vibrant Life. A different version of this Substack was first published as an opinion piece in the New York Times.
Related articles:
The Doctor Who Refused to Comply: And Now He’s Facing Jail Time
Kicked Out of the Pediatrician’s For Wanting to Delay Vaccines: One Mom’s Story
The Family Physician is Against Vaccines, Here’s Why
It's appalling in my opinion to read what DR? Mike Ginsberg has to say. He sure wouldn't be my kids doctor! Does he really believe he's "protecting" his sick patients? Would love to get in his head and see what he really believes or what makes his tick.
This message/post from Dr. Mike Ginsberg is quite old.
I found an article back in Feb. 2015 from https://www.snopes.com/news/2015/02/03/epicdemiology/
when many doctors believed in this stupidity.
Maybe after COVID this doctor changed his mind like many others did.
Would you or anyone have any update what this Dr. believes today?