<<Many mothers openly tell that they choose based on what they
want and that babies' health is only a secundairy thought! I once made the
mistake of writing that if the baby could choose etc. and I got flamed for it
like I was writing some kind of racistic propaganda.>>

Gonneke, you wrote about selfishness in the current generation of parents.  I
think you may be right, and it sure makes things difficult for us when we
want to promote breastfeeding!  We have to emphasize the "what's in it for
mom" message more, I think, since the "baby's health and nutrition" message
isn't pushing their buttons.

I know that breastfeeding turned me into the person that I am, and it didn't
happen overnight.  I believe it was getting zapped with that dose of hormones
many times a day that made the change.  (Now there's another reason to
encourage frequent feeds!  ---to keep the mother's hormones in a more
'maternal' state.)

Could we craft a "Be all you can be" message for pregnant women?  (For our
non-U.S. colleagues, that is a slogan the U.S. Army has used for recruiting,
which emphasizes the opportunities for education and skills training in the
military to young people with limited options in the civilian job market.)
This would be tricky, because of course we're implying that women who don't
breastfeed are not reaching as complete a state of personal development that
is "all" they could be.  But maybe that's true!!!

An important part of the message is to imply a comparison of the woman who
doesn't breastfeed to *herself* if she did breastfeed...not to another woman
who does breastfeed.

Just brainstorming...
Chris Mulford, RN, IBCLC
Swarthmore  PA (eastern USA)

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