In a message dated 10/6/98 11:11:18 PM Central Daylight Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:

<< "I breastfed for six months and for three of those I was
 working.. At one point I went to my physician with a bad cold and
 exhausted.  When she learned I was working full time and breastfeeding
 she said it wasn't healthy. I was on the verge of collapse, " she
 remembers.
  >>
 >>
Articles of this type of righteous indignation base their anger on two flawed
ideas. Everyone seems to gloss over two important facts here:
1. Breastfeeding for months 3-6 is much more work than continuing to
breastfeed from 6-12/24 months, this mother had already made it through the
hardest part, and quit when it would have gotten easier, because she was
probably told there was no more benefit to continuing, and she had "done
enough".
2. Breastfeeding is still seen as a Herculean challenge, an abnormal stress on
the woman's phyisiology, instead of the NORMAL physiological state of women
all over the world after they birth a child. It is still a prevalent myth even
among physicians, that breastfeeding ( NOT mothering in general) "takes a lot
of out"  the mother. Since these same physicians do not believe that there is
any significant difference between nursing and artificial feeding, they tell
women, in effect , oh you are too busy to be wasting your energy for "real"
work on breastfeeding.
   There HAS to be some educated, well-spoken doctors who will  step up to the
plate and refute this garbage. Just last night I got a call from a mom who
weaned cold turkey at 6 months because she was tired from having a baby and a
toddler in the house. She was thrilled because they "baby loved the formula
and the bottle - he is so excited when he sees it !" I did not tell her most
babies love light sockets, and hot dogs, and Legos, and driving cars, and all
sorts of interesting things that can be a detriment to their health, like
unnecessary artificial feeding. This sort of skewed view of a baby's decision-
making power still amazes me. The bottom line is this goes back to the two
basic myths, that breastfeeding is really not any different than artificial
feeding, and that breasfeeding is an abnormal stress on the body that weak, or
even modern/independent women, should not have to cope with.
Yuck, Judy