Thanks Leslie, for your wonderful post, reminding us that some moms have
other issues that may be affecting their decisions and abilities concerning
how their babies are fed.

We also need to remember, though, that there is a much bigger group of moms
out there who have NO CLUE that it makes any difference whether you
breastfeed or bottle-feed.  It is NEWS TO THEM.  These are the ones who can
be reached and affected by someone simply providing them with information
about the difference between breastfeeding and bottle-feeding.  Many many
women never give any thought at all to whether they will breast or
bottle-feed.  They just bottle-feed because . . . that's how babies are fed
in the US.  They use disposable diapers because . . . there aren't any other
kind.  They have their boys circumcised because . . . that's what we do to
little boys.  They buy a crib and fix up a special nursery for the baby
because . . . that's what we do in our culture.  They assume that if
breastfeeding were better, the ob/gyn would tell them all about it, rather
than give them a free sample of formula and sign them up to receive cases of
free formula.

And I'll freely admit that one of my main motivating forces in doing what I
do is to empower women as women -- I don't think any other activity empowers
women as women as much as breastfeeding.

When one knows a lot about a subject, and deals with it day in and day out,
it is sometime difficult to remember that there are entire groups of people
who have never heard of the issue.  I am reminded of this every time I teach
my "Women and Culture" class, as I am this semester.  We always begin with
female genital mutilation -- and most of the class has no idea that this
exists.  They are shocked.  And just yesterday, a student in another class
looked thoroughly confused when I told her that women in traditional
cultures didn't menstruate very often as adults.  She didn't know that
breastfeeding affected menstruation, and hadn't really thought about how
many pregnancies women experienced in the past.  These things seem obvious
once you know them, but we all had to learn them for the first time, once.
And many women who bottle-feed have never heard anyone say anything remotely
like "This may be harmful to you and your child."

Kathy Dettwyler