I don't know how I missed this article!  Love it - its a must read.  Over and over, John Hoffman writes a great article that sheds light on the real issues around breastfeeding.   Now if Today's Parent magazine would drop the formula advertising...(Hey, I can dream).  When I checked out the article, there was a big banner ad for Nestle.  

You can send feedback to 
http://www.todaysparent.com/corpinfo/contactus/letters.jsp?feedbacktype=letters


Stop Blaming Nursing Moms

http://www.todaysparent.com/pregnancybirth/breastfeeding/article.jsp?content=20051028_141317_4732&page=1
or
http://tinyurl.com/a3x35

[Originally published in Today's Parent, December 2005]


It takes a village to help a mother breastfeed. 

Earlier this year, Statistics Canada released a report on breastfeeding practices. Among other things, it showed that of the mothers who start out breastfeeding, about one in six does so exclusively for the first six months of an infant's life - the period now recommended by both Health Canada and the World Health Organization. This led The Globe and Mail to say, "the vast majority of women are ignoring public-health recommendations."

Hardly. Those recommendations weren't even in place when the women in this survey were breastfeeding, between 1998 and 2003. It's going to take a while for the idea of exclusive breastfeeding for six months to become standard advice given by doctors - some of whom are still obsessed with getting four-month-old babies on cereal - let alone common practice among mothers. Also it's clear, as this report shows, that most moms want to breastfeed and that they understand the value of breastmilk to their babies (more on this later). The key issue is why they stop, and I assure you it's not out of zeal to ignore expert advice.

(see link above for full article)

Janice Reynolds

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

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