>Phillip wrote:
>There certainly are big problems with the way our hospitals deal with
>supporting mothers but I don't know that you have to have "breastfed a child
>for at least a year" to be able to work with new mothers who are
>breastfeeding.

Phillip, having given this more thought, I have to agree with you.  You're
absolutely right.  Perhaps it isn't so much having breastfed a child for a
year that matters, as having breastfed a child for as long as you wanted
(however long that was), and/or NOT having bottle-fed a child.  Since you
are a male, you obviously can't breastfeed a child, but you also haven't had
the experience of "attempting to breastfeed" and then failing, and then
feeling bad about it and taking out your grief and guilt on other mothers
you come in contact with.  Or of having chosen to bottle-feed in the first
place, and then later feeling that you have to justify your choice by
denying that breastfeeding matters.  I think that some anti-breastfeeding
nurses (and doctors) spend a lot of energy denying that breastfeeding
matters so that they don't have to feel bad/guilty about their own choices
to bottle-feed.

With respect to men letting babies suck on their "breasts" -- there are
cultures where anyone who is holding a fussy baby, in the absence of its
mother, will let the baby suck on their fingers, knuckles, arms, or breasts
in order to comfort and pacify it.  I don't see anything particularly weird
about this.  In "modern" cultures, we have plastic pacifiers, and we stick
those in babies' mouth when they are fussing and their mother isn't around.
There really isn't any big difference.  In my ever so humble opinion.

Kathy Dettwyler

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