Brooke,

>indeed, there is a difference between breastfeeding and
>bottle feeding EBM and I so agree we have a responsibility to be honest
>about that, even when it feels painful. 

You're right, it is painful. I've been there with my cleft affected EBM fed daughter, and work with mothers in the same situation. I'm glad though that there is a growing online community of EBM mothers and is therefore becoming a more frequent topic of conversation. Like any 'diversity', I think EBM mothers will feel more accepted once there is an acceptance of how heroic they are (by the wider community), rather than being somehow lesser than a regular breastfeeding mother.

I try to point out to EBM (and the occasionally supplementing  BM mothers) that an aware mother finds many ways to make up for what she and the baby are missing out on from breastfeeding and that breastfeeding on it's own doesn't make a great mother! (and we need to say that loudly as EBM mothers generally feel pretty bad when they're sitting at their breast pumps instead of cuddling their babies - maybe we need some motivational 'bumper stickers' to stick on rental pumps?)

Alice Farrow
LLL Leader, Rome, Italy

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