Let me add to what Beth said from my own experiences as well.  My husband
and I went through several years of fertility treatments.  Both of our sons
wre conceived on the same day, but the youngest spent 2 1/2 years in the
freezer.  (There are still six kids in the freezer waiting to be thawed out
if I can manage to convince my husband that we should have a third one!)
It is my experience in talking with several other women who have undergone
these treatments that since they have worked so hard for these children,
they want to give these children the very best that they can.  Most of the
women that I know are knowledgable about medical practices and have a great
deal of respect for technology, but they are also very willing to learn to
do whatever is best for the baby they have worked so hard for.

There are many different causes of infertility and I am sure some of these
can affect milk production.  In many cases, they do not.  I think close to
half of the infertility problems are the result of problems in the husband.
They were never able to determine the cause of our infertility.  The only
trouble I had in breastfeeding my first was the result of very poor
breastfeeding information given to me by the nurses at the hospital, one
non-supportive doctor ("The differences between breastfeeding and formula
are really over-rated."), and my own ignorance ("I shouldn't have to pay
somebody how to do something that should come totally naturally.").  My
oldest son received EBM in a bottle for seven months because I could rarely
get him to latch on.  I was educated enough to know that breastmilk was the
best thing for this child we had worked so hard for, and that's what he was
going to get!  My second son was born elsewhere, and we had lots of good
support from the lactation consultant on staff at the hospital.  Timothy is
3 3/4 years and is still breastfeeding.

My point is that just because these moms had to rely on technology to get
children, they also had a strong desire to have them (You have to to go
through all that!).  I think the majority will what to do what's best for
the child if they have been shown what that is.  It would be interesting
for someone to actually do a study and see what the breastfeeding
initiation rate is for moms of high-tech babies, and if the cause of the
infertility influences it.  I would suspect most of them are no different
from the general population.  I think the secret is in the education, of
the parents, the nurses, the doctors, and the general public.  I know a lot
of moms that had infertility problems and the majority of them wanted to
breastfeed.  They were not committed to technology, but were committed to
their baby.

Donna


Donna J. Spannaus-Martin, Ph.D., MT (ASCP)
Assistant Professor, Clinical Laboratory Sciences,
University of Tennessee, Memphis
http://www.utmem.edu/allied/CLS.html