The AAP recommends a MINIMUM of one year of breastfeeding, and after that, they say it is fine to use cows' milk. Thus, one need never use formula. Therefore, it's hard for me to see how lobbying by the formula company could influence what the AAP says. They used to say breastfeed for 6 months, and after that cows' milk. So they doubled their minimum recommendation for breastfeeding from 6 months to 12 months. I suspect they thought that was pretty darn bold for the US in 1997, and judging from the reaction it got in the popular media, including from pediatricians, many people in the US thought one year was an ungodly length of time to expect "modern US mothers" to breastfeed their babies. The AAP recommendation was slammed as being unrealistic, unnecessary, unattainable, unachievable, by most US women. I suspect that they thought that, given the generally good clean water supplies, availability of immunization and antibiotics, and lack of many tropical diseases in the US, that US babies would probably be fine if they were breastfed for a minimum of a year. In general, if I live to see the day when all US babies are breastfed for a year or longer, I'll be content. If the AAP had gone along with WHO recommendations to breastfeed for a minimum of two years, they probably would have been dismissed completely as begin too far out there to take seriously. Sad, but probably true. Kathy Dettwyler _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx *********************************************** 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