I came across a book at a University Bookstore tent sale the other day and
was aghast at what I read when I flipped through it.  Not wanting to buy
it, I checked it out of the library.  The book is "Motherguilt: How Our
Culture Blames Mothers for What's Wrong with Society," by Diane Eyer, PhD,
(also author of "Mother-Infant Bonding: a Scientific Fiction").  New York:
Random House, 1996.

Dr. Eyer is not a mother herself, but here is some of what she has to say
in a section called "The Breast-Feeding Police":

        ...Although the psychopediatric community now claims breast is best,
        the health advantages do not seem dramatic.  Entire generations have
        been raised safely on formula.  Yes, certain immunities are transmitted
        through breast-milk and it is easier for many babies to digest.  But
        studies find a correlation between bottle-feeding and inferior infant
        may really be finding the effects of poverty because poor women,
        whose health and nutrition is more likely to be inferior, also tend
        not to breast-feed.  I'm certainly not disagreeing with the assertion
        that 'breast is best' for the majority of women and babies.  But I do
        believe that breast-feeding has become one more overstated imperative
        that holds women to an impossible standard and contributes to their
        guilt.  While it can be a very gratifying experience for a mother, it
        can also be exhausting, burdensome, and quite painful; moreover, many
        women must take medication for their own health, making breast-feeding
        inadvisable.  For middle-class women, breast-feeding is becoming
        another pseudo-index of good mothering; for poor women, it may become
        an imperative for different reasons - bottle-feeding costs money, and
        government programs that underwrite the cost are now promoting breast-
        feeding because it is cheaper."      p. 73

Well, there's enough to make all of us mad! She goes on to lambast the work
of Kennell and Klaus, "whose science, we will discover, borders on
fiction..." (p. 75), and to ridicule all the literature on attachment and
bonding.  This book seems to be another "Bottle-feeding Without Guilt"
diatribe.  But why do these titles make it into mainstream bookstores and
libraries?  The bookjacket and her credentials make this book look very
authoritative to new parents browsing the shelves.  So sad.

Anne Altshuler, RN, MS, IBCLC and LLL Leader in Madison, WI
e-mail address:  [log in to unmask]