Well, I did paint with a very broad brush there.  Pardon my ranting.
:-)  (And don't worry, I have worded my advocacy letters much more
carefully.)  Yes, bf rates have come way up in the nearly 50 years
that LLL has been around.  However, the US still hasn't gotten where
we say we want to be.  Healthy People 1990 and 2000 goals set by our
gov't for bf initiation and duration went unmet, and we're likely to
miss the 2010 goals as well.  Only a small percentage of US babies
are exclusively bf for 6 months despite this being the official AAP
recommendation.  For every woman who calls LLL or an LC for help with
bf, many more simply switch to 'good enough' artificial feeding.  So
we have a long way to go.

I believe the evidence for women knowing but not doing is from
studies on attitudes toward bf and bf discontinuation.  I can't seem
to lay my fingers on a reference right now -- can anyone help?  I'm
sure I've read it somewhere . . .  (famous last words!).

Margaret
Longmont, CO

>>In my advocacy letters on this issue, I've been saying that LLL and
>>others have been promoting bf on its 'benefits' for nearly 50 years
>>now and where has it gotten us? We have a nation of women who KNOW
>>that bf is best, but still choose not to.
>>
>I'm not sure how factual this is. It seems to me that the breastfeeding
>rates have increased since LLL started nearly 50 years ago. I think it
>is important to make evidence-based statements. And if it is true that
>women know bf is best but choose not to (this, I presume, would mean
>that there are studies on the knowledge base) we need to look hard at
>the reasons why. I am still surprised by what I hear both in helping
>calls and at parties (the latter are an awakening in many ways,
>including the fact that last time I went to a Christmas party without
>children I was a mother of two. :-) I'm not hearing that mothers think
>breastfeeding and artificial feeding are equivalent, I'm hearing that
>the difficulties of breastfeeding are overwhelming. Just tonight a
>mother asked me, "Does anybody else have trouble learning how to latch a
>baby on?"
>
>Jo-Anne Elder-Gomes, LLLL, mother of 7, step-mother of 2, step-nanny of
>5 (3 living)

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