http://www.medelabreastfeedingus.com/mom-of-the-month-winner

If you are still in any doubt that Medela idealizes bottle feeding, check
the part of the website where the winner of the Freestyle Mom of the Month
is presented.  Guess what the prize is.

The current winner got herself a Freestyle pump with an essay that concludes
thusly: "If I am able to pump, the boys would be allowed to bond with their
sister as they experience the joy of giving her the bottle.  This would
allow our children to feel equally important as members of our family, as
they bond as siblings."  

The things she will have time to do, thanks to the pump, are "return the
phone calls and emails I get each day, make my childrens' Christmas
stockings for next year, create life books (pre-adoption/adoption books) for
our boys and a baby book for our baby girl, and write a book for others to
read about our challenges with infertility and adoption."

I find this sad reading.  By her own account, she has wanted children for
ages, finally got to adopt school age brothers from Russia, and then
discovered she was pregnant.  At the time she wrote these words she had
never cared for a newborn baby.  She is taking 8 weeks off after the birth
and planning to pump from the start to get a good supply laid in.
Apparently no one has told her that the pump will require a certain amount
of care as well - or maybe she is counting on the sibs or the father
appreciating the bonding that will come from their equal importance as
bottle washers.  I wonder when she will be 'allowed to bond' with her
daughter in all of this, and I am sickened that Medela endorses such a plan,
even applauds and rewards it.  It really shows how much they know about life
in the trenches with a newborn and two suddenly uprooted older adopted
children.  One can only hope that when the baby emerges onto this scene, the
mother will take a moment to reconsider the plan, just to save herself an
awful lot of work.  And how is she going to have anything to put in the baby
book, when she is hardly going to see the baby anyway?

I am too disgusted to read any more of these, not sure my blood pressure can
take it either.

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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