The title of this article about Canadian ultrarunner Stephanie Case winning a the 100 mile race Ultra-trail in Snowdonia, Wales, on May 17, six months after giving birth, really gets my goat.
The article itself is just fine. It talks about how 42 year-old Case took three years off from running and this was her first big race since then. It’s honest about some of the challenges she faced both with her body and with managing the logistics of feeding her baby. Case talks about the importance of supporting new moms, and allowing them the space to pursue things they love, while also recognizing that stories like hers risk setting impossible standards for women.
Case did a truly remarkable thing. She ran 100 km in a little over 16 hours, starting a half hour behind the elite runners in the first wave. She did it a mere six months after pregnancy and birth, something that can be really hard on a woman’s body.
But would there have been the same attention to her story if she had been using formula, as many women do for all kinds of reasons? Somehow I doubt it. I still see way too much “breast is best” social media shaming of women can’t or chose not to breastfeed. Full disclosure: I am very much in the “breast is great if it works for you and your baby, but fed is best” camp. Formula was invented for a reason, and millions of children are alive because they had that option (especially in countries with access to clean water and good quality formula).
Still, if a stupid headline is what it takes to highlight the accomplishments of an amazing woman doing a really hard thing, I’ll swallow my grumpiness and celebrate her.
Provocative post, Diane. I am still thinking through my … thoughts. Would you have been okay with a title that replaced “breastfeed” with “feed”? I agree with you that if she’d been feeding formula, there could well have been a backlash about her “selfishness”, because she wanted to run and therefore stopped or never started breastfeeding. And that’s not good. Still, on balance, in the dance between celebrating and encouraging women’s accomplishments and not using the celebration to set ridiculous, unmatchable standards for all women, I want us to keep dancing (and running and everything else)!
I guess the thing is not that she is a saint for breast feeding, but rather that it would not have been so simple for someone else to do the feeding. One of my kids refused to take a bottle from anyone for a few months, the other just went along with whatever we gave her. My thought is only that it would have been simple for the dad or another friend or relative to do the feeding had it been formula. Maybe the message is not about which feeding system she chose, just about the fact that she had a baby so young that she had to stop to feed.
At least, I hope that’s all they had in mind.
Yes I agree, she had to take time out of the race to feed the baby. If she used formula someone else could have fed the baby. Thats the point of mentioning the feeding method imo