>  The problem... that I see is we can not explain this complex  emotional
>relationship to a woman... she has to experience it/ so, we must  convience her
>to breastfeed... and long enough for this relationship to catch...

No we cannot explain *what* it will mean to her, but surely we can assert 
that it will have meaning.  We live in a society where everyone, from our 
parents, to advertisers, tell us all our life long that we will get meaning 
from our sexual relationships (personally I think they overstate the case) 
and prepare us to do so.  We simply live in cultures which have airbrushed 
out the fact that we will get emotional meaning from breastfeeding. Imagine 
(my favourite fantasy) that the positions of breastfeeding and sexual 
relationships in our popular culture were reversed ... !!! I love the idea 
that breastfeeding would be the dominant image, for good or for ill, while 
the idea that one could get any satisfying emotions out of sex is so 
subversive that it outrages everyone, from the left to the right, and the 
only way to promote sex is for health reasons.  In a way, the second part of 
this is fulfilled in Huxley's 'Brave New World' -- a novel, incidentally, 
which is very interesting on the subject of breastfeeding and mothering. 

However, something we are overlooking is that probably the biological human 
pattern (which we obviously do not neccessarily adhere to because of our 
intense cultural modification of every aspect of our biology) is for 
everyone to have experienced it -- I know my 18 year old daughter 'gets it' 
because she has experienced it.  As the baby. 

Probably when you are the person helping a mother you cannot also be the 
person telling everyone that this is a really important human connection, I 
am just sad that breastfeeding advocates largely congregate in the 'helping' 
end of the field and we do not have enough people talking about the other 
aspects.  We have allowed breastfeeding to be submerged into 'health', and 
it has suffered as a result. 

Magda Sachs 

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET email list is powered by LISTSERV (R).
There is only one LISTSERV. To learn more, visit:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html