I'm feeling a little cranky after the Atlantic article and I'm pretty sure I'm repeating 
myself.  The article follows standard guidelines for discrediting breastfeeding as follows:

1) Discredit the evidence --- usually only taking on those conditions for which it is difficult 
to prove a relationship to anything (e.g obesity and IQ --- they never take on diarrhea or 
respiratory infections)
2) Discredit the researchers --- note the indirect comments about the American Academy 
of Pediatrics ---- that are designed to lead one to conclude that these are breastfeeding 
fanatics
3) Claim that women will be liberated by formula feeding (yes, I am naming Voldemort)  
--- hence appealing to "feminists"  (the debate is always couched in the Martyr versus 
Liberated or the Madonna versus Lazy terms)


My problem with the argument that formula is a feminist issue is that women used to 
work in close proximity to their infants.  Just like sleeping in close proximity to your 
infant, working in close proximity enables women to work and breastfeed with less 
disruption.  Industrialization made this just about impossible for women to breastfeed 
their infants while working and the infant death rates in Chicago (I'd have to get the 
original citations) were in the 300 per 1000 during this period from the formula available 
at the time. Wetnursing among family and kin members was common and the wealthy 
used wetnurses.  Formula has been given sufficient subsidies to demolish wetnursing as a 
viable employment opportunity and hence we now have an inferior product.  If we can 
screen for egg donors, sperm donors and surrogate mothers, you cannot convince me 
that the medical community cannot give guidelines for safer wetnursing and milk sharing.
The baby swapping that I know went on among cowives in Northeast Zaire (now Congo 
again) was the maternal relief system. These women shared care giving and income 
generating activities.  In that area of the world women really were the economic engine -
-- most men only worked at chopping down large trees and hunting except for a few 
lucky men who worked for the railroad company, the five teachers and the two doctors. 

Google the author of the article --- it should be enlightening as to her lack of credentials 
in science.

Best, Susan

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