As someone said earlier, there's a tendency for two words to become a
compound word as the image they represent becomes more and more mainstream.
My spell checker doesn't like "website" yet but of course has no problem
with "web site".  As feeding with a bottle became more and more popular, it
was elevated to "bottle-feeding" - a common enough activity for the two
words to travel in tandem.  But we're trying to move breastfeeding beyond
that, to the place where "tablecloth" and "sidewalk" are, that is, to the
point where the two words in the compound word lose their individual
meanings altogether.

The formula companies, of course, would rather not see that happen.  You'll
rarely see "breastfeeding" as one word in their literature.  It's far less
appealing, I'm sure they figure, if it's just another feeding mechanism, so
they want to make sure that that exposed breast and that feeding function
don't get lost in a compound word.

When I see "breast-feeding" I assume it's either a) from a foreign country
where it's not yet understood to be an issue, b) from a source that is not
entirely friendly to breastfeeding, c) from a poorly informed source, see b,
and/or d) from a news service that uses what its own sourcebook says.  We'll
know we've arrived when the news service spellcheckers (I notice my computer
didn't reject that as a compound word!) get rid of the hyphen.

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY

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