Linda wrote:

>There are quite a few people on this list alone who have voiced 
>quite strong opinions over whether or not someone who is 
>bottle-feeding her milk to her child is actually breastfeeding.


I might have missed some discussions on this, but someone bottle 
feeding her milk to her baby is certainly not breastfeeding, and we 
do breastfeeding, and mothers and babies, a disservice if we think 
this is the same experience as breastfeeding for the mother or the 
baby.

It is not.

There may be powerful reasons why a mother does this - and of course 
from a health point of view the two of them are better off doing this 
than giving formula, and  it can  take a lot of time and dedication 
to bottle feed EBM. Mothers who do this are entitled to support and 
affirmation that it is worth the time and dedication.

But it is a different experience, with different outcomes and a 
different cultural and social impact.

Why would it be controversial to say this?

As regards criticism of LLL,  I think a lot of us have been close to 
LLL or similar volunteer organisations, over many years, and we 
simply don't recognise the cruelty and insesnsitivity described by 
some people - we would *know* about it if it was anything other than 
a rare occurence. However, similarly, a lot of us have been close to 
hospital and other agency mis-management and outright sabotage of 
breastfeeding, and we know that this is *not* a rare occurence.

So it's possible to draw on these experiences to make observations on 
what is *likely* to have happened in any individual case, though of 
course no one should claim to be sure.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor
-- 
http://www.heatherwelford.co.uk

http://heatherwelford.posterous.com

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