Hi all,

While the WP article on breastfeeding unfortunately reinforces the common
and uninformed perception that BF benefits are too marginal to matter, I
think we can do women a disservice if we lead them to believe that BF is
easy.  It usually could be easy, biologically.  But socially, there are
pervasive barriers, including simply the lack of encouragement, support,
and assistance.  Many also face unaccommodating workplaces and threatening
laws.  For some it takes heroic effort to persist with BF.  They deserve
heroic-level congratulations, which people may think is unnecessary if
they beleive that BF is necessarily easy.  If only the medical system
would congratulate the women who DO BF, that would be a big improvement.
I think we need to be sensitive to how it can be hard, and use this NOT as
justification to dismiss BF but as a call to make it easier for women--to
give them a realistic sense of what it might be like and to provide better
support for them.  You all do this.

The WP article would have been better if it focused on the barriers to BF
as the problem, not BF itself.  Best wishes to you all,

*********************************************************************
MaryAnn O'Hara, MD, MSt, MPH
Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program
University of Washington
1959 NE Pacific, Rm H-220 Health Sciences Center, Box 357183
Seattle, WA 98195-7183
(office)         # 206-616-8724
(home office)      206-329-6870
(fax)              206-685-2473
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
*********************************************************************

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