Hello, all! I am returning to Lactnet after being absent since early July, (just was too busy to be able to read all the posts), and I have missed a lot of wonderful information and sharing. I am glad to be back. A striking difference between cows and humans' feeding is that the cow's udders are down in her hinder parts. Humans are the only mammals, I believe, who nurse in the "en face" position, just at the optimal distance for mother and baby to gaze lovingly into each others' eyes as the baby feeds. (Notice how formula and baby bottle ads try to mimic this positioning, showing close distance between mother's and baby's face and direct eye contact, not the way babies are really held for bottle feeding). Perhaps people equating breastfeeding with feeling like a cow has to do with feelings of discomfort with associations of breasts and sexual or bathroom functions, and also with feeling "used," as in cows being milked by machine and people being milked with breast pumps to leave bottles for babies to be fed by someone else. Might it help if we emphasize more of the special connection of babies and mothers during breastfeeding? Like the loving looks, the games all nursing babies play at the breast, the milky smiles, the utter relaxation and security of a baby drifiting off to sleep in mother's arms? Just a thought. And by the way, Linda Smith's wonderful analogies of feeling like a squirrel one day, a seal another, etc. finds expression in a nice new children's picture book, "The World Is Full of Babies," by Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom (Doubleday, 1996). It talks about how all sorts of babies develop and grow - how they eat (with a nice breastfeeding picture), are carried about, are cleaned, vocalize, play, etc. Anne Altshuler, RN, MS, IBCLC and LLL Leader in Madison, WI