I agree w/ all the previous posts listing numerous obstacles to breastfeeding and I'm not sure that I could choose which one holds the #1 spot. However, my impression is that we live in a convenience society...we want convenient food, convenient entertainment, convenient education and convenient relationships. Let's face it--children are not convenient, but many parents spend exorbitant amounts of time and energy trying to make them *be* convenient to better fit the expected societal mold. Yes, many of us in the lactation arena understand that breastfeeding is truly convenient, but the perception of many mothers I interact with is that it's very limiting and confining, some things a woman of the 90s certainly does not find convenient. I hear these mothers saying that their babies just *have* to take a bottle by 3 months, even if they have the privilege of being home w/ the baby as a full-time mother. It's more convenient in their minds to purchase ABM and wash supplies for artificial feeding than it is to put the baby to breast. Breastfeeding interrupts their social agendas, careers that require frequent and lengthy travel, etc. Agreed, knowledge of how to express milk and maintain supply would be helpful (the ignorance obstacle), but these otherwise well-educated mothers, IMHO, really don't want that information because it's (1) more convenient to be free from the necessity to breastfeed and (2) nice to avoid the guilt that would come if they were armed w/ the proper knowledge. How to overcome this obstacle??? I'd love help w/ that! Rebecca DeYoung Daniels, MBA, RD, LD, LLLL in Overland Park, KS