Ruth, it sounds as if the article "The Politics of Breastfeeding:  Assessing
Risk, Dividing Labor" by Jules Law in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and
Society 2000 25(2):407-450 has been poorly researched.  While we cannot be
responsible for the cited facts and figures on infant feeding in some of the
"popular" (lay) literature, those of us who are IBCLCs are required to be
current on the huge amount of good, up-to-date research which exists in the
field of lactation and breastfeeding, so that we can use this information on
a day to day basis to assist mothers and babies to breastfeed easily and
with confidence.  The stated summaries of each of the implications you
mention (1 - 7) are, frankly, preposterous. If they are written as you have
summarised, then IMHO it is quite obvious that the author is writing on a
topic about which he knows dangerously little.  Whether he writes well, or
badly is beside the point - his knowledge base is faulty.  I would suggest
that he update himself by reading, perhaps for starters, the latest editions
of Breastfeeding and Human Lactation (Riordan and Auerbach), Breastfeeding:
A Guide for the Medical Profession (Lawrence), Infant Feeding: The
Physiological Basis (WHO, editor James Akre) and take it from there.  I hope
other Lactnetters will respond too.

Pamela Morrison IBCLC, Zimbabwe
[log in to unmask]


Ruth summarized,
>1. breastfeeding does not significantly differ from formula feeding in terms
>of health benefits to the infant,
>2.  extended breastfeeding exacts a health toll on the mother which might
>outweigh health benefits,
>3. breastfeeding for an extended time period excludes paid work; thus
>breastfeeding is only an option for women in a traditional nuclear family
>with a male who can support the whole family financially
>4. breastfeeding represses women by keeping them from paid work
>5. breastfeeding is bad for families, especially fathers because it assumes
>primacy of the mother-infant dyad
>6. breastfeeding is socially unjust because it requires one-on-one childcare
>by the mother when quality care for children could be provided collectively
>while mothers contributed to society and the family through paid work
>7. breastfeeding actually denies infants of valuable immunity experience
>they would get in daycare and thus sets them up for more illnesses than
>formula fed babies during the preschool period

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