Carol wrote: " When we give free formula, no matter how wonderful the breastfeeding program is, we are, I think, degrading women. We are telling them. It is OK for your babies to have second best. We don't want you to grow and increase your self esteem. We don't care if your babies are not as healthy and not as smart. If we are really interested in the health of mothers, babies and children, we will stop giving free formula." have to agree here. I think we (I'm speaking of US) have a lot of prejudice against people who are poor. I think we are also NOT child-centered. Nor do we promote healthy children in the US. We don't care about poor women's babies. They won't amount to anything anyway, will be a drain on the system, just like their mothers and grandmothers. Probably end up as crack dealers and gang bangers or pregnant at 15 y.o. so what's the point of having them healthy and smart. [yes, I'm a little cynical today]. We will also go to great lengths to deny these women treatment, care, etc. We will insist they get min. wage jobs and then complain that they are living on the street b/c they can't afford housing/phone/heat/food working at a min. wage job. God forbid, we give them usable job skills! It's interesting. I'm amazed at the number of strangers who will commend my for staying home with my dtr., but will criticize a poor woman with children for not working. Check out www.libertynet.org/kwru for the "Poor People's Human Rights Report on the United States." Just my 2 quarts worth of NSHO. Johanna Berger, LSW Breastfeeding Counselor Bala Cynwyd, PA ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html