It's great to see more frequent, accurate, and positive portrayals of
breastfeeding on tv.  (Did anyone see the NBC movie "A Secret Between
Friends" this past Monday night?)    Regarding "All My Children", let's not
forget that breastfeeding is more than "product delivery".  Though I don't
watch the show, the situation described leaves me feeling that the birth
mother could be being taken advantage of.  I agree that breast milk is every
baby's birthright, but at the risk of being misunderstood, I know that this
kind of situation is more emotionally complicated.  A birth mother will be
grieving the loss of her baby for the rest of her life.  We are compassionate
when a mother loses her baby through death, but many people feel an unwed
mother who gives up her baby is just suffering the consequences.  But, she
has become a mother, after all, and despite knowing she would give her baby
up, probably already bonded with her baby, to some degree, during pregnancy.
 Breast milk is an important gift--perhaps even a lifesaver-- that the tv
birth mother can give to her baby (and I'm sure some real-life birth mothers
would choose to give it without coercion from adoptive parents), but I wonder
if the scriptwriters will allow her the full dignity of her loving gift?  I'd
like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I wouldn't be at all
surprised if, to keep the storyline lively, this birth mother turns up crazy
and evil in some future episode.  As breastfeeding advocates working hard to
help reestablish a cultural norm, we don't have to settle for shabby,
exploitative representations of a breastfeeding relationship, however
accurately staged.  It's wierd, why couldn't we just see mothers
breastfeeding?  On the flip side, the nursing memory shared by a mother with
her teenage daughter in NBC's "A Secret Between Friends" was pure gold.
 Thanks to all Lacnet-casters, whose insights I enjoy very much, and from
whom I am learning.  Diane, LLLLeader.