Hello, all!  I am returning to Lactnet after being absent since early July,
(just was too busy to be able to read all the posts), and I have missed a
lot of wonderful information and sharing.  I am glad to be back.

A striking difference between cows and humans' feeding is that the cow's
udders are down in her hinder parts.  Humans are the only mammals, I
believe, who nurse in the "en face" position, just at the optimal distance
for mother and baby to gaze lovingly into each others' eyes as the baby
feeds.  (Notice how formula and baby bottle ads try to mimic this
positioning, showing close distance between mother's and baby's face and
direct eye contact, not the way babies are really held for bottle feeding).
 Perhaps people equating breastfeeding with feeling like a cow has to do
with feelings of discomfort with associations of breasts and sexual or
bathroom functions, and also with feeling "used," as in cows being milked
by machine and people being milked with breast pumps to leave bottles for
babies to be fed by someone else.  Might it help if we emphasize more of
the special connection of babies and mothers during breastfeeding?  Like
the loving looks, the games all nursing babies play at the breast, the
milky smiles, the utter relaxation and security of a baby drifiting off to
sleep in mother's arms?

Just a thought.

And by the way, Linda Smith's wonderful analogies of feeling like a
squirrel one day, a seal another, etc. finds expression in a nice new
children's picture book, "The World Is Full of Babies," by Mick Manning and
Brita Granstrom (Doubleday, 1996).  It talks about how all sorts of babies
develop and grow - how they eat (with a nice breastfeeding picture), are
carried about, are cleaned, vocalize, play, etc.

Anne Altshuler, RN, MS, IBCLC and LLL Leader in Madison, WI