For those in Australia there is a truly awful article in this months
Australian Good Taste magazine. I've just written a letter to the editor
which follows here.
Karleen


Every month I look forward to reading Good Taste and especially to  Dr
Patricia Mcveagh's Healthy Child column. In each issue Dr McVeagh provides
scientifically accurate up to date information on child health. Both she
and Good Taste should be congratulated.

However, this month I was absolutley horrified to read the myths about
breastfeeding perpetuated in Danny Katz' article "Mother knows best". In
that article breastfeeding is portrayed as being boring, time consuming,
depersonalising, difficult, onerous, 'brain sucking' and painful and
although formula feeding is messy it 'was a completely safe alternative'. I
know that the author is a commedian and it was supposed to be funny but the
problem is that people might really believe what he wrote. Why is this a
problem? Because formula feeding is a dangerous practice. It causes an
increase in the incidence of many diseases including juvenile diabetes,
caeliacs disease, malignant lymphomas, breast cancer, middle ear infection,
gastroenteritis and SIDS and according to the World Health Organisation 1.5
million babies a year die because they are not fed breastmilk. I am sure
that you would agree that this is not funny at all. That is why formula
feeding should never ever be portrayed as an acceptable feeding method
because of some perceived convenience but rather as an absolute last resort
in exceptional circumstances.

In addition, breastfeeding under normal circumstances should not be
painful, it should not be difficult, it should be no more time consuming
than any other method of feeding a young child and mothers who do need
information or support can go to the Nursing Mothers' Association for
information or support at any time. Some women may find breastfeeding sexy,
exciting and empowering, others may not, just as some women find pregnancy
sexy exciting and empowering and others do not. It really is irrelevent
because breastfeeding is how babies are meant to be fed, anything less is
fourth best.

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html