Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 20:59:29 -0400 From: "R. Bacon" <[log in to unmask]> Subject: bottles I have enjoyed the bottle discussion but it has also made me feel glad that I live in Canada where moms are mostly taking=20 a year off nowadays to enjoy breastfeeding and mothering. I work in several clinics (28 years experience with moms and=20 babes including breastfeeding my own four now grown children). We have always asked moms how long they planned to breastfeed and they used to say about six months. Now that=20 legislation has come into effect to say that women can have=20 paid maternity leave for one year the answer to the question "How long do you plan to breastfeed ?" has changed from six months to one year, with many who will say "as long as the baby wishes". I agree with Barbara that a moms wishes and goals should be=20 respected but I think we should point out that introducing bottles may introduce problems and shorten the breastfeeding experience. I think I wrote on Lactnet about five years ago about triplets who breastfed exclusively for three months and then had bottles introduced because mom was going to a wedding. One baby loved the breast and refused the bottle (waited for mom to come home), one baby had two bottles and refused to go back to the breast and the other baby happily switched between breast and bottle. Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 19:08:29 -0400 From: Michelle DePesa <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: bottles-long Just as with formula use, I believe moms should be informed that sometimes bottles can disrupt breastfeeding. Bottles are not a normal part of raising a baby, but an accessory. Pacifiers are the same. They are cultural (and capitalist) artifacts more than anything else, and both cause enough trouble that we should all at least be very wary. Dear Ruth and Michelle, Hooray for Canada...that is certainly legislation we should push for in the US! I agree that the key is education and informed consent. Of course most babies around the world never get bottles. My only point is that I have seen many parents terribly distraught because their 2 month old (and older) baby absolutely refused the bottle (when mom had to return to work, was hospitalized, was placed on a medicine that required her to temporarily stop nursing, etc) and I have never had a baby refuse the breast when they were taking nursing well and only being offered 1 bottle every day or every other day. But, of course we all have different experiences. I also understand the hesitation about pacifiers, but I think that to see them as a capitalist plot misses the point that babies need to suck A LOT. As I mentioned in an earlier note, in some cultures young infants are nursed 50-100 times a day. In our culture that frequency of nursing would certainly be way outside the norm...but some babies really need to suck and if their moms don't want to put them to the breast as often and long as they seem to need, the pacifier is a convenience for them. Accessory? Yes, but sometimes a useful one...even Bill and Martha Sears condone this in The Baby Book. Best wishes, Harvey *********************************************** 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 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