Hear hear!
-----Original Message-----
From: Lactation Information and Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rachel Myr
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 4:13 AM
Subject: breastfeeding support and guilt
Marianne and Julia have discussed the goodness of mothers in connection with fully breastfeeding for six months or supplementing from the start.
In this one I'm with Julia. The goodness of a mother can not be determined by knowing whether or not she fully breastfed, or for how long and you can not make a blanket statement that exclusively breastfeeding mothers are better than other mothers.
That does not change the fact that human milk is the normal food for human children and that no other food can measure up in quality. But provision of breastmilk at the breast or by other means is not the best criterion on which to judge a mother's adequacy or excellence. You can be a crap mother and breastfeed and you can be a supermother without breastfeeding. Mothering is bigger than feeding a baby, a lot bigger. Feeding is an important part, for sure, but it's not the only thing.
Marianne mentions some other characteristics of mothers, and asks whether we should refrain from ranking mothers on the basis of how those characteristics play out. The difference between those other characteristics and exclusive breastfeeding is that the other characteristics merely involve conscious choice, while the ability to exclusively breastfeed is not always within a woman's power to choose. Unless you know for a fact that a woman has no problem with supply or with being available for her children, is informed about the role of breastmilk in infant and child development, and chooses to give her children an inferior alternative because she can't be bothered breastfeeding, you can't say she is a less good mother than the woman who exclusively breastfeeds.
In my practice the women who are doing the most physical work, work that really taxes their resources to the utmost, are not the ones who are exclusively breastfeeding without a hitch. They are also plagued with worry that their baby will be harmed, and they are often treated with great insensitivity in the health services (example from a couple of days ago, said to a mother by the health visitor at every meeting of the group in which she was *required to participate* at every visit to her well baby center - 'oh, that's right, you're the one who ISN'T breastfeeding'). And any doctor who thinks breastfeeding is hard on a woman's body, should try comparing it to bottle feeding with breastmilk substitutes. Now THAT is work. When it comes on top of breastfeeding more frequently than her sister with no problems and plenty of milk, possibly trying to express milk mechanically between feeds in an effort to increase yield so she can supplement less over time, it seems really unfair that the woman who is hardly making an effort at all should be rewarded with the stamp of 'better motherhood' just because lactating comes easily to her.
Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway
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