This could be a topic for new mothers here in Norway.  Please try to imagine
the distress of a mother who has not found another way to get milk into her
baby than by bottle, when she has to be out and about among other mothers
who all seem to be happily breastfeeding any and everywhere.  Her view will
be skewed by the fact that the mothers who are still trying to sort it all
out are not the ones occupying the tables at cafés or park benches.  My
impression is that they feel just as vulnerable as a breastfeeding mother in
a bottle feeding community.  They are exquisitely sensitive to the gaze of
others, to the point of wanting to hang a sign around their necks that says
'I have cancer and had to stop breastfeeding because of my chemo' or 'it IS
expressed breastmilk in this bottle' or 'I'm only minding this baby until
his REAL mother comes back'.

Or my colleague, who drove miles away from the supermarket across the road
from her house, to buy formula in quantity where nobody knew she was a
midwife, it was that painful to expose her *failure* to the other customers
and the employees at the neighborhood store.  She struggled with low supply,
and I think if she gave birth today I might be able to help her to have a
more successful course of breastfeeding, but her existing children are now
well past possible re-lactation age, especially the ones who have moved out.

Somehow we seem to have managed to avoid that polarization with mutual
antagonism between mothers whose breastfeeding is derailed or shipwrecked
early on, and those who breastfeed happily and expansively for as long as
they like.  There is a support website for bottle feeding mothers, to
provide non-commercial information about how to do it, and recount
experiences with the various brands of infant feeders on the market.  They
have a link to the BF mothers' organization website, and we have one to
theirs.  The testimonials in their guestbook are heartbreaking, and they are
the strongest indictment around of the failure in our health services to
provide even a modicum of adequate help to mothers who need help the first
few weeks.

The line I like the best is what I suggest to any woman who experiences an
unsolicited comment from someone about how she is caring for her baby, and
it works either way.  First fixing the person with a steady, cold gaze, you
say 'How interesting that YOU are so concerned with what I am doing with MY
baby.'  Unless she is breaking a law, they can just mind their own business.

Oh, for the day when the finger wagging and meddling stop, and women can
just be mothers without getting free advice on everything under the sun, and
without fear of judgment or rude comments or looks from every passing
stranger who feels compelled to make someone else's day a little less
enjoyable.

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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