The article above is irresponsibly titled: there is a huge difference between not breastfeeding and not exclusively breastfeeding.
But the WEC Health Unit report the article reports on is also hot garbage. Health units should be at the forefront of informing parents to help them make the best decisions for their family, not trying to shame, fib, and scare them into compliance and treating them like failures for anything less than "perfect" performance, where "perfect" has nothing to do with the wellbeing of the baby or the mother.
There are all kinds of reasons not to exclusively breastfeed when leaving the hospital that have nothing to do with a mom's intention to breastfeed as much as she can. A jaundiced baby needs to eat even when you're still waiting for your milk supply. And some babies start solids as early as four months, after which they are no longer exclusively breastfed even if they've never received a drop of formula and parents have religiously followed their doctor's advice.
The stigmatizing of formula, apart from being baseless, adds to the stress and guilt of mothers who wish they could breastfeed but can't. In the case of this article, that stigma is being applied even to women who don't have enough milk but keep breastfeeding with formula to supplement. ("Supposedly, they opt for using formula instead", the article says of mothers who don't exclusively breastfeed... what is that supposed to mean? Is the author unsure whether a mother so thoughtless that she would give her infant formula might give them antifreeze instead?)
Add all of that to the fact that this article and the health unit perpetuate a myth that there is strong evidence that breast milk prevents SIDS and illness later in life for the baby. (The former seems to be the result of rooming in and frequent feeding rather than breast milk, the latter effect disappears when researchers control for genetic and socioeconomic factors). We rightly criticise policymakers who want to treat the reproductive education of children this way, but toss all of that out the window once an adult woman becomes a mother. This isn't good enough.
