Last night I read a book on parenting premature babies.  The book is new to
our LLL library so I wanted to be familiar with it before I recommended it
to any moms.  There was virtually no mention of artificial feeding and I
found the author to be supportive of breastfeeding until I reached the end
of the book.  There is a section about helping older siblings cope with the
arrival of a needy premature baby and allowing them to temporarily regress
to babyhood, etc.  The author goes on to say "Allowing this acting out is an
important way to validate your firstborn's emotions while removing the
mystique of babyhood. [fine]  This means, for example, allowing your child
to nurse at your breast, if she asks to and its not distasteful to you. [no
problem there, but get this ] She will find, of course, that your milk is
QUITE BITTER [emphasis mine] and may express surprise at the baby's apparent
delight in drinking it"

I expressed surprise at this passage and re-read it several times and again
this morning to make sure I was not confused!  I know breastmilk is not
bitter (except, perhaps after a breast infection it is salty for a while),
in fact we tell moms that babies will prefer breast milk over ABM because it
is sweet.

What say you all about this?  I did not give the name of the book because
I'm not sure how that falls into Lactnet guidelines, but I will if
requested.  I am planning to write to the author (she gives her hospital
work address at the end of the book) and ask her to explain this passage.

Kathy Koch
Oak Harbor,WA
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