"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.

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY  USA
www.normalfed.com

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