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| Date: | Tue, 4 Jun 2002 10:15:53 -0400 |
| Content-Type: | text/plain |
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My letter to US New & World Report, which lauded the superiority of
breastfeeding and expressed concern about making mothers feel guilty. (I
debated my use of the word "long-term", which I dislike for anything less
than 7 years. I've since read and much prefer the term "sustained", which
one of our friends from Oz used recently.)
I'm absolutely convinced that a good bit of our problem is everyone's
acceptance - even on this list - that formula sets the norm and
breastfeeding is somehow "better". Same old song, I know, but I see all
around me, in all sorts of issues, evidence that no one gets too excited
about "superior" so long as "normal" is readily available and widely used.
Dear Sirs:
The study in the Journal of the American Medical Association erred in
stating that breastfeeding longer results in smarter babies (as reported in
your May 20 issue). Since long-term breastfeeding is the normal human
arrangement, it is associated with nothing fancier than normal human
intelligence. The scary reality is that infants whose normal food is
withheld may fall 6 or more IQ points short of what they would normally have
attained, depending on how long theyıre deprived.
As to guilt: any loving mother does the best she knows how to do for her
baby. The guilt belongs to health care professionals who fail to provide
access to effective breastfeeding help, and to a society that tells her it
doesnıt matter.
--
Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL Ithaca, NY
www.wiessinger.baka.com
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