Thanks for your response, Pamela.

You make the point that the idea of breastfeeding being,  in some 
circumstances,  detrimental to maternal mental health is   cultural - 
yes, of course this is true, but  infant feeding, however it's done, 
is a *behaviour* as well as a physiological process.

Once humans  started living in social/familial groups, maybe 100,000 
generations ago, infant feeding  behaviours became culturally and 
socially mediated,  in many different ways, down the millennia.

I think there's probably very little we can ever do about that - but 
despite that,  I persist in feeling 100 per cent comfortable with the 
idea that the mother, and not her HCP, is *in charge* of finding her 
own autonomy, *in charge* of navigating the culture she finds herself 
in,  and that she, and not the HCP,  makes the essential decisions 
about how to nurture her infant....and taking that autonomy away is a 
Big Deal, and only to be done as a last resort and if the child is in 
immediate danger.

I suppose I am one of those you call 'the human rights people'!

This is consistent with my belief that except in extreme situations, 
a woman's reproductive choices are *her own*, her place of birth 
choice is *her own*, and that she should be supported to be  'bodily 
autonomous'.

   Within obvious moral limits, no one has the right to over rule 
that autonomy - no, not even the baby and still less the baby in the 
guise of a public health imperative.

I pointed out in a previous post that there is still much to explore 
when it comes to the psychosomatic, psychodynamic effects of 
breastfeeding/not breastfeeding. I think it is highly plausible that 
not breastfeeding/early weaning may have negative effects on a 
mother's psyche.

But it still does not give me the right to tell a mother, or even 
think, that breastfeeding is her 'duty'; I don't have to think her 
decision is right or wrong...it's none of my business, because it is 
her decision.  It is her decision to give up breastfeeding very 
quickly, it is her decision not to breastfeed at all.

You add:



>  We can't be accountable for mothers' decisions, but we _can_ 
>consider whether playing nice by agreeing that they always make the 
>right decisions is entirely appropriate.


I don't think mothers always make the 'right' decisions. I don't 
think *I* always make the right decisions.  Often the decison to use 
formula is not wholly consistent with the mother's autonomy - she's 
influenced by the culture around her, which can be profoundly 
anti-breastfeeding and anti-women's decisions. Eithne wrote about the 
inaccessibility of breastfeeding to some women - they just cannot 
imagine doing it. That's not autonomy, either. But the woman is where 
she is -  and we should be with her, not judging but supporting. This 
does not mean pretending for the sake of politeness that 
breastfeeding is the same as formula feeding, or that breastmilk is 
the same as formula.  And nor does it mean  that mothers have a 
'duty' to breastfeed, or that we can decide what her 'duty' is :)

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK.


-- 

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

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome