Thanks for the responses on this. I don't think my piece should be used as a blueprint for responding to media articles, though. This was a response to a very particular, individual and vitriolic column, full of ridiculous inaccuracies, from a woman who had not breastfed and who clearly knew ZIP about it. They are not all like that :) 

I am not always as eye-rollingly cross about articles, and sometimes my heart goes out to the authors. 

Thanks for clarifying what you meant , Pamela. You said that 'we agreed with his detractors' and you justify this by quoting the chair of a vol org who absolutely did not agree with his detractors.

But did you read what his detractors actually said? About him? About breastfeeding? About the people who support and advocate for breastfeeding mothers? Did you read, for instance, the column in the Mirror Online which I responded to? 

In any case,  I agree with that chair ( no idea who it was).  Every word. I don't think my job is to convince individual mothers who do not want to breastfeed to do so. That - individual attempts at convincing people who don't want to do it - damages breastfeeding advocacy, IMO, because it is so often done really badly. Unless we can 'convince' without leaving people feeling pressured, belittled, judged, angry and marginalised, we should back off the attempt. 

I will share information, and Baby Friendly has it right in ensuring every mother has the information about infant feeding (otherwise how can anyone choose to breastfeed if they are from a formula culture?). But convincing the non-breastfeeders? No. The ones who need convincing are more powerful - governments, employers, legislators. 

It's unfair to say the chair's words were 'agreeing with Jamie's detractors'. 

Thanks for the nice comments about my piece though :)

Heather Welford Neil
U.K. 
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