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Subject:
From:
Melissa V Kirsch <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 7 Dec 1997 08:08:20 EST
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If you have time, please go to this website and look at Jane Eisner's
editorial on pg. E7.  www.phillynews.com . While it had some good
points--some of it made me sick.  I bet a lot of us around the US will be
seeing editorials like this in response to AAP.

The title was "Support breast-feeding with kindness and common sense"
(the subheading was "Nursing Mothers are a big challenge to our culture)
but here are some of the comments:

She starts out with her experience (her husband was jealous) and does
list many of the benefits, but then it deteriorates.

"Any new mom , if she's honest, will admit to feeling like an unmilked
cow for months on end."
"No use in pretending that somehow the father will feel as involved in
the extraordinary importance of feeding his child."
"Are women ready to take this on, a dozen times a day, at least a year
for each child?"
"Is the country ready to accept mothers baring their breasts at a mall or
a restaurnant."

She goes on to list stories of professional colleagues feeling
unprofessional. ONe complained about being asked what was in her pump
case "I once answered honestly to a colleague and could see that I'd
embarassed him and overstepped the boundaries of our relatively formal
and distant relationship." (Oh, please...)

She ends by calling for workplaces to be more flexible, but then says
"Nursing motheres have to become more attuned to the awkwardness they
engender when unbuttoning their shirts in public.  Fathers have to find
alternative ways of nuturing their babies, and become more comfortable
with temporarily sharing their wives.  Breast may be best--with the milk
of common sense."

Melissa Kirsch


 Letter to editor's address is:  [log in to unmask]
Eisner's e-mail address is [log in to unmask]

Melissa Kirsch

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