Child Custody Battle: No Breastfeeding while the child is in the father's custody (1 Viewer)

Optimus Prime

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First time hearing about these kind of disputes

Is this legal? Enforceable? Punishable if violated?
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When Arleta Ramirez’s daughter was born in July, there was no question what the girl’s diet would be. Breastmilk is endorsed by the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics, which cites “unequivocal evidence” it protects newborns from disease. Ramirez was also a breastfeeding veteran — she’d breastfed her son for two years.


However, Ramirez’s plan — and her daughter’s food supply — soon ran into an unforeseen obstacle: a custody dispute.


Ramirez said she and her daughter’s father split shortly after the birth, and the father moved out of their Northern Virginia home.

On Nov. 28, a Prince William County judge ordered that the father be permitted to visit the baby four days per week ahead of overnight visits slated to begin in February.

There was an additional condition. “Mother is to make every effort to place the child on a feeding schedule and use a bottle,” the order read.


Ramirez wasn’t sure what to do. Authorities agreed that “breast is best,” but her baby fed as much as once per hour, and the father complained that feeding times interfered with his visits. Ramirez tried to pump but, at least at first, could produce little milk that way — and the girl initially rejected bottles, a problem that may complicate overnight stays.


Still, this was a court order Ramirez couldn’t ignore. Even as she gathered evidence that she was in the right for another court hearing set for April — a letter from the baby’s pediatrician explaining that she is exclusively breastfed, the names of legal experts on breastfeeding — she couldn’t understand why the court was hurting her daughter. Even her own lawyer has advised her to stop breastfeeding to comply with the court order, she said.

“Why are they forcing me to stop breastfeeding?” she said. “Isn’t that her right? Isn’t that in her best interest?”

In an email, Mike Ridgway, the child’s father, said he had given Ramirez “space to both nurse and to pump milk for me to bottle-feed our daughter while she is in my care.”

“Past the age of 6 months I will continue to support breastfeeding and bottle-feeding our daughter breast milk as much as possible, while also supplementing with formula only when absolutely necessary,” he wrote.


Tara Steinnerd, Ridgway’s attorney, said Ramirez is using breastfeeding to try to salvage a relationship that is over.


Steinnerd said she represents men and women in custody cases but has only represented men when breastfeeding time is litigated. Some mothers may have legitimate claims about breastfeeding that courts can weigh when making decisions about visitation, according to Steinnerd — but, in the cases she has worked on, mothers have been unreasonable, refusing to recognize a father’s need for visitation or refusing to pump.


“They come up with a myriad of excuses,” she said. “It’s about using breastfeeding as a weapon against visitation.”


Ramirez had stumbled into a dilemma — breastfeeding vs. visitation — that advocates say is common. But because most custody disputes are handled in state courts and don’t surface consistently in public records, there’s little paper trail to show how common it is.


Stephanie Bodak Nicholson, president of La Leche League’s USA Council, said that over the past 30 years, she has fielded at least one call per year about breastfeeding amid custody disputes. And she is only one of the breastfeeding support network’s 1,500 “leaders,” each of whom works in a specific geographic area……..

Some attorneys have embraced this reasoning. In Virginia Beach, for example, attorneys at a practice calling itself “The Firm for Men” represent men exclusively in custody battles. In its arguments and on its website, the firm takes aim at what it calls breastfeeding “ploys” for women seeking custody.


“Many divorcing Moms throw up all sorts of reasons why they alone must have sole physical custody, or limit a father’s parenting time to an absolute minimum, for a nursing child,” the firm’s site says.

It adds: “Thousands of children have thrived and grown exclusively on formula, while the supposed benefits (smarter children, healthier babies, more serene mothers) do not always hold up to scientific scrutiny.”…..

 
Since there are so many choices today and there are SO many genders, I choose for men to now grow the babies in their bodies and produce the breast milk. That way we can stop oppressing women for things that happen exclusively in their bodies that they didn't CHOOSE to.
 
Umm, the thread title is misleading (edit - fixed).

The issue is that the father shares custody with the mother. So there are times in the shared custody agreement where the child is to be in father's care. The father can't breastfeed the child so the court told the mother to prepare to be able to accommodate this schedule. The reality of this is that the father will need to be able to bottle-feed the child . . . whether that's pumped breast milk or formula.

The father appears to be trying to find a happy medium with allowing some time for breastfeeding and happy to use pumped milk in a bottle. But if he has to let her breastfeed the child all the time, he isn't getting his share of custody.

I think this is just the reality of a shared custody agreement during this time of a child's life. Framing it as "no breastfeeding" misses the point and is misleading. There are many reasons why children can't be exclusively breast-fed . . . like the mother is working is the number one reason but there are others (the mother is a breast-cancer survivor is another one). It isn't the terrible consequence the mother is asserting here. And it's likely that there is persuasive evidence that the child being able to bond with the father during this time is quite important as well.
 
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That judge needs to be disbarred

And this is why there is zero issue with all male legislatures passing laws about women’s health - there is no chance whatsoever that they don’t know what they’re talking about

Oh and Florida and maybe Indiana legislatures (pretty sure it’s Midwest) passing dress code to police what female legislators wear
Us men know best, not sure why women continue to not understand 🫥
 
There is no such order that says "No breastfeeding" in this case.

The judge simply ordered the mother to take reasonable steps to accommodate the father's custody - and because that means the mother won't be there to breastfeed the child, the mother needs to take reasonable steps to make that work, including trying to get the child to be able to be bottle fed. The mother seems to think that it's all-or-nothing, either she breastfeeds the child 100% of the time, or she's being ordered she can't breastfeed. I don't think that's a reasonable interpretation of what is happening. Both of our kids were breastfed when my wife wasn't at work, but when she was, they took a bottle - with breast-pumped milk. This happens every day with babies in America.

And this kind of thing happens with other custody issues that come up. Both parents have an obligation to make reasonable efforts to meet the parameters of the custody agreement. I'm not saying it's ideal for the child, it's obviously not ideal. The parents being together is ideal for the child - but that isn't happening either.
 
Thanks for clarifying the title

Opinions in the comments are all over the place, definitely different opinions on who is being unreasonable
 
There is no such order that says "No breastfeeding" in this case.

The judge simply ordered the mother to take reasonable steps to accommodate the father's custody - and because that means the mother won't be there to breastfeed the child, the mother needs to take reasonable steps to make that work, including trying to get the child to be able to be bottle fed. The mother seems to think that it's all-or-nothing, either she breastfeeds the child 100% of the time, or she's being ordered she can't breastfeed. I don't think that's a reasonable interpretation of what is happening. Both of our kids were breastfed when my wife wasn't at work, but when she was, they took a bottle - with breast-pumped milk. This happens every day with babies in America.

And this kind of thing happens with other custody issues that come up. Both parents have an obligation to make reasonable efforts to meet the parameters of the custody agreement. I'm not saying it's ideal for the child, it's obviously not ideal. The parents being together is ideal for the child - but that isn't happening either.
It isn’t this akin to the abortion debate - the philosophy of the law makes it want to seem like there is balance on both sides when clearly there isn’t
Only the woman can have the fetus inside here, so the man has very little skin in the game’ (like, a cell), he can’t share any of the burden - and yet, somehow men get a say in what happens

Same thing with breastfeeding- when the dad can start breastfeeding, he and the court can determine what ‘equal’ and ‘share’ means, until then no - law needs to take a backseat to nature
 
law needs to take a backseat to nature

That wouldn't be a good thing in many (if not most, even all) cases.... there wouldn't be concequences for stalking/attempted rape/rape, men wouldn't be compelled to support woman or child, men could beat the crap out of/kill other men and have their way with their wives, even kill the woman's children from other men.... nature is brutal, it has no court system.
 
That wouldn't be a good thing in many (if not most, even all) cases.... there wouldn't be concequences for stalking/attempted rape/rape, men wouldn't be compelled to support woman or child, men could beat the crap out of/kill other men and have their way with their wives, even kill the woman's children from other men.... nature is brutal, it has no court system.
You misunderstand me
And I’m now in a state of complete shock
 
It isn’t this akin to the abortion debate - the philosophy of the law makes it want to seem like there is balance on both sides when clearly there isn’t
Only the woman can have the fetus inside here, so the man has very little skin in the game’ (like, a cell), he can’t share any of the burden - and yet, somehow men get a say in what happens

Same thing with breastfeeding- when the dad can start breastfeeding, he and the court can determine what ‘equal’ and ‘share’ means, until then no - law needs to take a backseat to nature
So a father doesn’t get to spend time with his child? Yes breast feeding is a great bonding experience. But she can feed the baby breast milk and pump breast milk that can be given to the father when he has his time with his child.
 
So a father doesn’t get to spend time with his child? Yes breast feeding is a great bonding experience. But she can feed the baby breast milk and pump breast milk that can be given to the father when he has his time with his child.
The advocacy in court should be what’s best for the child- if the child only takes breast then that sets the bar and everything adjusts to that
 
The advocacy in court should be what’s best for the child- if the child only takes breast then that sets the bar and everything adjusts to that
As a person who owned and ran a daycare a child can adjust to a bottle as well. I also had 4 kids and 6 grandkids so I spent a lot of time holding my children and feeding them. It was one of the best moments of my life and nothing compares to it.
 
It isn’t this akin to the abortion debate - the philosophy of the law makes it want to seem like there is balance on both sides when clearly there isn’t
Only the woman can have the fetus inside here, so the man has very little skin in the game’ (like, a cell), he can’t share any of the burden - and yet, somehow men get a say in what happens

Same thing with breastfeeding- when the dad can start breastfeeding, he and the court can determine what ‘equal’ and ‘share’ means, until then no - law needs to take a backseat to nature

No, I don't think its akin to the abortion debate. There's only one way to have a baby - the fertilized egg develops in the woman until birth. That's literally the only way it can happen, it's exclusive, there's no way to reasonably consider the interests of anyone else with the lone exception of the fetus/baby itself. Any discussion of the abortion issue, or any other birth issue has to recognize this incontrovertible reality.

But while yes, the dad cannot breastfeed, that is not the only way to nourish a baby. When it comes to exclusive breastfeeding (meaning the baby is only breastfed and there is no bottle involved at all) information from the CDC indicates that only about 25% of American babies are exclusively breastfed in the first six months of life. Obviously, this means the 3/4 of American babies are not being exclusively breastfed . . . which means that there is a bottle involved at least at some point in the child's regular feeding. Whether that bottle contains pumped breastmilk or formula is a secondary question.

While exclusive breastfeeding at that time is now considered ideal, it simply is not the only way to reasonably accomplish the need. So it's completely not like abortion. And it isn't that exclusive breastfeeding is so beyond important that the other ways are dramatically underserving the child, it's a marginal thing. Here, no one is saying that the mother cannot breastfeed the child when the child is in her custody - only the reality is that this child is in a shared custody situation and the mother's insistence on exclusive breastfeeding necessarily and substantially interferes with the father's custody rights. And as the article is well to point out, there is another thread in the interest of the infant in the study of childhood wellbeing that relates to a critical bonding period with the father.

The point here is that the father has custody rights as well and the breastfeeding issue is not so compelling that it overrides the father's custody interest (and the child's interest in being with the father for meaningful time). That's not supported by law and I don't think its supported by science. There are multiple issues involved and the most reasonable approach seems to balance those issues by accommodating the father's custody interest and the child's interest in having time with the father by enabling the child to be bottle fed (either with breastmilk or formula) . . . like 75% of other American babies.



 

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