Hello, I'm a labor and delivery nurse for the past 10 years and work mandatory 12 hour shifts--a schedule designed, it seems, to interfere with parenting in all ways possible.  Fortunately I was able to stay home with my children when they were babies, breast feeding each for 2 1/2 years.  Of the nurses I work with who have had to return to this horrible schedule after maternity leave, some have pumped and continued to breast feed for 2 years and beyond, but a couple have just given up and switched to bottle feeding after a month or so.  No one likes pumping, but for some the joy of breastfeeding compensates for the inconvenience, for some it doesn't.  These women know the benefits of breast feeding and choose not to continue.  I cannot tell them that the coice that was right for me is right for them, because I'm not in their circumstances.  This leads me to the growing discomfort I've felt from all the NOW bashing after the AAP breastfeeding guidelines came out.  The Nation!
 al Organization FOR Women has lobbied for years to make both the home and the workplace more supportive of women.  A basic tenet of that organization is that, given correct information and support, women are capable of making the choices tht work best for them.  You needn't have been so surprised by the NOW officer in Texas who was supportive of breast feeding, that was completely in character; I came to feminism through my involvement in LLL.  NOW supports women in all areas of growth, and choice is the basis of growth.  I think their statement regarding the AAP guidelines does nothing to undercut breast feeding.  They simply say that for reasons of their own, some women choose not to breastfeed, NOW is not going to mandate that they do; but you can be sure that they will lobby for workplaces that are more friendly for the breastfeeding woman.  I'm not an officer in NOW, I don't speak for them officially, I'm just giving you my opinion of their stance.  Please try to give !
 them the same consideration you have shown to Mormon women and!
  those s

upportive of Primise Keepers.  Joyce Jones RNC
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