I am in no way reducing breastfeeding to the product.

I am countering the concept that if a mother refuses her breast, then 
formula is the default.

If a mother refuses her breast - then human milk is the default.  Either 
through bottle, or wet-nurse.  My first choice would be wet nurse 
precisely because breastfeeding is so much more than product.  
Interestingly, the WHO is coming round to that... see wet nursing 
creeping up in the documents....

Formula does not appear in the equation.

Mother refusing the baby her breast *does not equal* formula.  

Likewise, a baby without a mother, should not require formula. 

We need to keep these in-between steps in mind, next time someone says 
"I choose not to breastfeed."  Fine.  Your Choice.  Now let's talk about 
what the baby needs....

Again, all under the caveat brought up by Karleen, that promotion and 
protecting of breastfeeding comes FIRST.  A woman's right to an informed 
and properly supported choice....

Morgan Gallagher

Marianne Vanderveen-Kolkena wrote:
>
> Morgan:
> "Every mother has a right not to breastfeed - it's her body.  Surely 
> the issue is if the child then has a right to human milk?"
>
> We can probably take care of that right over time, by ramping up milk 
> banks and/or figuring out how to can human milk.  Not a perfect 
> solution but way better than formula, of course.  But what about a 
> child's right to his first human relationship - breastfeeding?  That's 
> a much more subtle right and vastly more difficult to secure, but just 
> possibly the more important issue overall.
>
> No answers here, beyond improving birth so that more mothers will 
> *want* to breastfeed, but I do worry that our culture completely 
> forgets there's a relationship involved here, in its pursuit of the milk.
>
> **Ah... Diane... thank you. I always feel so sad when breastfeeding is 
> reduced to a product instead of seen as a uniquely reciprocal process, 
> indeed the first relationship we all get to built upon in order to lay 
> the foundations for all the relationships to come in the years ahead.
>

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