Kathleen, thanks for pointing us towards this interesting article.

The author is putting out mixed messages.

I would not argue a moment with her conclusion:

"Breast-feeding activists who argue for paid maternity leave are on 
the mark. But the milk war is sapping attention from crucial 
parenting issues. We shouldn't be fighting over individual choices 
about nursing or dictating them: We should be organizing for paid 
parental leave, subsidized day care and public preschool. When it 
comes to children's emotional and physical health, these all matter 
as much as mother's milk. "

She describes the social and economic pressures on women which 
prevent breastfeeding - again, she's on the money.

But the answer is not to minimise breastfeeding - to say it makes 
very little difference, that mothers don't need to worry about it, 
that formuia is just as good blah blah blah.

Why does she not stick with her argument that support for 
breastfeeding is a *political*, *social*, *community*, *economic* 
issue ? She understands full well that it is - but her response is to 
trivialise the effects so mothers 'don't feel guilty".

She also does not really 'get' the facts about how bf works. A baby 
losing weight at 2 days old like hers was - why would the response 
have to be formula? Why not hand express colostrum, ensure skin to 
skin contact, feeding ad lib? I also wonder how you know a baby is 
actively losing weight at 2 days.....but if you do, that's still 
*normal*. Babies may well still be losing weight at that stage.

And if a paediatrician actually says to a new family 'formula is 
evil' then complain about his choice of words and his manner, which 
are both highly unprofessional.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK
-- 

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