Marie wrote:

<Has anyone ever looked at who is the instigator in *dad can bond* by
bottle
feeding? Or rather the baby won't bond to dad if dad doesn't give
bottles? Is
it society? . . . . . .Maybe our society is still equating food with
love.>

Gonneke wrote:

< One is that it is a very subtle input from the AIM industry (or am I
a bit paranoia here?)  The other might be a misinterpretation of
psychological theories where bonding to the mother is seen as one of the
advantages of breastfeeding, thus leaving fathers with the false idea
that
feeding must be the key to bonding or attachment.>

While those who profit from bottle and formula paraphernalia (and pump
paraphernalia???) might easily be suspect, the idea of misinterpreting
about bonding and ongoing attachment goes even further in my mind.

Even in the direct, exclusive breastfeeding situation, to speak of
bonding as if it is a singular process misses the fact that there are at
least two individual processes at work, i.e. the mother's bonding with
the baby, and the baby's bonding with the mother.

I can't help but believe those hormones pouring directly into the
mother's brain and blood stream within minutes of each latching have a
tremendous effect on the mother's experience of bonding. I don't think
anyone gets that experience of bonding by bottle feeding.

For that matter, I wonder how the release of those hormones when
triggered during exclusive pumping, might somehow skew the associations
of the mother by altering the time frame away from the time of skin
contact with the baby.

I still remember fondly the emotional reward I felt within my body, mind
and soul from the long-term hormonal state of breastfeeding my fourth and
fifth babies.

I recognized a repeated pleasure that was such a contrast to my
"fractured" 5-10 day experiences with my first 3 children. It made me
feel certain that I was gypped out of something very special with them.

3-5 decades after the fact, I perceive they all bonded and attached quite
well with me and my husband somehow, and both he and I with them.

But my experience makes me wonder if dads are being sold a bill of goods
that perpetuates a "bonding envy" as suspect as the popular theory of
"you-know-what envy" in females!

I agree with Patricia:

<  we need to push the other ways in which relationship develop.>

Jean
******
K. Jean Cotterman RNC, IBCLC
Dayton, Ohio USA

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