Hi everyone,

I know I’ve posted a lot lately and I’m sorry, I finally get up the courage
to post after lurking for a bit and wham! LOL!

Anyway here’s my take on the whole bf & guilt thing.  The infant feeding
class that I do is basically to educate women (and men if applicable) about
abm and breastmilk.  I have women who are on baby number 2 or 3 or whatever
who defiantly sit down and say “I formula fed all my other kids and they
are fine so you can’t make me feel guilty about it!”  I tend to respond
with something like “I’m sure they are fine and I’m sure you are a very
good mother, I have no need to make you feel guilty.  My only goal is to
educate you so that you have made a decision based on the facts rather than
myths and good marketing.”

Generally they settle back and participate in the class and generally they
leave felling guilty for not bf the first kids.  I always tell them “you
can’t go back & change it, and you did the absolute best you knew how to at
the time…..There is no point in feeling guilty about it, but now that you
have some new information to work with you can do things differently with
the new baby.”  Most women ask to be schedualed into a bf class to learn
more.

I guess my point is that education is the key to empowering women to make
good choices.  And that’s where I see my role in battle is, to educate.

Thanks for listening,

Jessica

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