> Once again, the topic of "but what shall we _call_ them? They're not
> like us!" comes up on this list. While the distinction is important if
> (and only if) you are the lactation consultant for this woman, is it
> really important to you to distance these mums by forcing a different
> label? Women who are compelled to express milk for babies who cannot
> nurse usually feel quite abnormal enough already, without being
> linguistically ostracised from the community of breastfeeding mothers
> as well.
>

Without in any way meaning to insult or distance mothers who are
pumping/expressing milk for their babies, I do think the distinction can be
important for more than just the lactation consultant helping a particular
woman. For example, I think there are several areas related to this that
would benefit from further research. Just as one example - we know that
breastfed babies are less likely to become obese children. One researcher I
spoke to thought this might  have something to do with the changing
composition of breastmilk throughout the feeding, which allows the baby to
(to a certain extent) "customize" the amount of fat intake he or she
receives, adjusting it to meet the current rate of growth. It would be
interesting to know if obesity rates are different for babies who are
bottlefed human milk, which would help us understand this process better. We
also have research that shows that breastfeeding mothers who sleep with
their babies lie with them in a "safer" position than bottlefeeding mothers.
It would be interesting to know if mothers bottlefeeding their babies human
milk also tend to sleep in that safer position, or if they sleep more like
mothers bottlefeeding formula. Knowing the answer to this might help us be
more specific in giving advice to mothers about sleeping with their babies.

Can we not acknowledge that there may well be some differences - perhaps
important ones, perhaps only minor ones - between breastfeeding at the
breast, and feeding the baby with expressed milk using a bottle or some
other feeding device? If we treat the two as identical, in our language and
in our research, we may not learn about any differences and or be able to
devise strategies that might help us minimize them.

It is certainly true that some babies are not able to "breastfeed at the
breast" and I regret that the mothers of these babies feel distant from
other breastfeeding mothers. But there are also other women and babies who
could breastfeed where the mothers choose not to, and they make that choice
because they believe the two options are equivalent, when they may not be.
Certainly this is a better choice than giving formula. But we need more
research  to see what differences may exist.

Teresa Pitman
Guelph, Ontario

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html