I would slightly modify Jay's great lines from: "The campaign promotes the best possible health for babies. Breastfeeding is the best and choosing formula endangers babies..." to "The campaign promotes normal health and development for babies. Breastfeeding is the foundation of biologically normal health and development and choosing formula endangers babies..."

Every time we say something like "breastfeeding is best" we are implicitly holding formula feeding as the norm. I firmly believe we must convey that the current normalcy of feeding babies artificial substitutes for human milk is a cultural artifact. When the words we choose clearly convey the biological normalcy of breastfeeding, it rightfully becomes the reference point against which the inferiority of formula feeding can readily be measured.

P.S. I don't envy anyone trying to speak about the Campaign on-the-fly. Even writing about it effectively is difficult. There is so much to convey--including many important subtleties of rhetoric. NOT answering the question asked (while answering the question that should have been asked) is no easy thing in an interview. And, as I discovered long ago with writing, my words are always improved by the keen eyes and quick minds of the breastfeeding-knowledgeable editors with whom I have been privileged to work. If only they could also somehow keep an eye on my words, on-the-fly, when I speak about breastfeeding!

Grateful for Amy's, Jay's, and many other people's efforts to protect the risk-based language of the National Breastfeeding Campaign,

Cynthia

Cynthia Good Mojab, MS, IBCLC, RLC
Ammawell
Website: http://home.comcast.net/~ammawell
Email: [log in to unmask]
Announcement only email list: [log in to unmask]

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

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(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html