Hi all,

Well I have been interested in everyone's ideas on this subject.  Having been
one who was not going to breastfeed, I can tell you that my major concern was
fear.  I had heard some bad stories about breastfeeding from my mother and
others.  I felt that if I did the pain thing in pregnancy and birth, I did not
have to do the pain thing by breastfeeding.  I only found out the rest of the
stories when I was a LLL Leader.  Then it all made sense.

I will tell you that I have never been one to encourage women to pump and feed
EBM, with the exception of an ill baby or going to work.  I feel these women are
motivated.  I have seen a few situations where the mother starts to resent the
pump and the baby for "making the mother" pump.  I feel that a mother can do a
good job bottle feeding.  It is much harder.  She has to hold the bottle and
give the baby her whole time.  This is harder to do.  All of the mothers I work
with get the "I am not against bottle feeding , but bottle propping " speech.  I
also tell moms to pump to slowly wean but do not let the pump get in the way of
caring for the baby.

Just my thoughts,
Diane Herforth, BAE, IBCLC, ICCE
Tacoma WA