If I began the week with doubts about the intensity of attention turned on this young woman, reading these posts have totally dispelled them.

Everyone's in favor of breast milk OK? Some can't breast feed, not, because they lack intelligence, or information, or motherly love, but because they lack breast milk.

When I read the ferocity of these posts I really begin to feel I'm reading alot of folks justifying their own needs as much as their babies? While breastmilk is beneficial, I'm not sure starting life at the teat of someone who wants to use their own baby as a bat against other mothers, is.

In fact not everyone can breastfeed ior be breast fed. Luckily, is seems many bottle babies have recovered enough to resume adult careers as supreme court judges and Pulitzer Prize winners.

Crabby is sooooo right about this one.

You came here expecting logical and calmly delivered solutions to real problems, hmmmmm? (eh, heh-heh-heh)

A. Let me offer you this fine cigar. I'll light it, then I'll excuse myself to let you enjoy it undisturbed (and run like hell before it explodes).

B. I'll hold the football, Charlie Brown, and you come running up and kick it.

C. I've got a great deal on this bridge. You could put up a toll booth and make a lot of money.

D. Could I interest you in a fine set of home reference materials? Only 5 dollars down and 25 dollars for (mumble) months.

E. Allow me to introduce myself - I am the conservator of the estate of the former president of...

F. The check is in the mail; I'm from the government and I'm here to help you; believe me, baby, I'll still respect you in the morning; it's only a cold sore.....

Whaaat? when someone dedicates a year(s) of their life to giving their baby what is their god given right and creating a bond with their child that's stronger than anything else you thinks that's about the mothers needs?

What about all those women who just give up after a couple of months? Isnt that about THEIR needs? Aren't they the selfish ones? It's about time that mother who make a few years sacrifice in their lives are reognized and thanked for that!

why do the mums that bottle feed see the dedication of brest feeding mothers as an attack on them?

Ahhh Tonto. Though I don't smoke, I do love a cigar on the the golf course with my husband on occasion.........its very calming and I admit disqualifies me from being a "lactation expert"

I'm just saying, to echo the problem of the LW several weeks ago that worked for the envioronmental organization, that it's "all about impacts not intentions." :)

Well what about the impact of taking away from a defensless baby the very thing they need to keep them happy and healthy . A mother who give the a few years dedecation?

I guess it depends how you define happy and healthy three year old?

In my case we thought the merits of an independant, active and socialized three year old seemed preferable to one clutching at my skirt and pulling out my boob at Safeway.

If one requires such an accessory to demonstrate their exceptional lactation skills or their mother-child bond, that's their choice. I'm just asking, in such a case who needs who more? In my case we decided that an independant, active and socialized mother was also preferable for all concerned.

I have read the observation that by one poster here that her baby is 10 more bonded to her than anyone. There are some shrinks that think that's not so healthy. I'm not qualified to judge that for all humanity. What I did judge for myself was that once a tooth hits my nipple from an insatiable being that has no impulse control and is bent on doubling his body weight in one year that it's perfectly rational to break out a blender.

Cancun, you should understand that while breastmilk is slightly better than infant formula in most situations (not all-- e.g., mothers who are HIV positive should bottlefeed), the emphasis is on the "slightly". It is quite possible to get plenty of infections as a kid despite being breastfed (I am actually an example of someone who did); it is also possible to be perfectly healthy despite being fed infant formula. And, of course, when you get past that, the effect of breast- or bottle-feeding on adulthood is extremely attenuated.

The point is, breastfeeding is beneficial on the margins. And yet breastfeeding activists portray it as if to feed a kid formula is the equivalent of not using a car seat or carrying the baby by his or her feet or something. Those are obviously bad analogies-- the likely result of not breastfeeding a baby is going to be either (a) nothing or (b) some minor infections and the like.

Further, there's way too much judgment of mothers' motives here. What some people decry as "convenience" is often a mother trying to have time for her own needs, her marriage or relationship, her job, etc. Having a mother who is stressed out or upset is probably a lot worse for a child's development than being fed formula from a bottle.

A better comparison with breastfeeding might be the decision of a mother to take the baby shopping rather than hiring someone to do it or ordering groceries by delivery. A mother who does that creates some risk-- after all, the baby is safer at home than he or she is in a moving car or out at the supermarket or the parking lot. And yet nobody would condemn a mother for running those relatively minor risks. And that's why. Because they are minor.

A lot of the debate about breastfeeding is actually tied up in all sorts of bigger issues, such as whether mothers should stay out of the workforce and take care of their children, whether we rely too much on processed food and have abandoned the natural, whether our society has improperly made breasts about sex rather than food, whether corporatism has gone too far, etc. These are all serious issues deserving of serious debate. But you can see, in the serious emotions that the breastfeeding debates generate, these broader debates resonating within this issue.

Everyone needs to calm down. Breastfeeding mothers need to be given the support needed to breastfeed. Bottle-feeding mothers need to be given the support for their choices as well.

cancun:

Whaaat? when someone dedicates a year(s) of their life to giving their baby what is their god given right and creating a bond with their child that's stronger than anything else you thinks that's about the mothers needs?

What about all those women who just give up after a couple of months? Isnt that about THEIR needs? Aren't they the selfish ones? It's about time that mother who make a few years sacrifice in their lives are reognized and thanked for that!

why do the mums that bottle feed see the dedication of brest feeding mothers as an attack on them?

No one sees one mother's dedication to her OWn child as an attack on someone else. It's when people tell OTHER people how they MUST rear the other person's children.

Some women dedicate 9 months of their life to their child, and UNselfishly let someone else better equipped rear the child. That shild is going to be bottle fed. Some mothers WANT to stay home, but have other mouths to feed, or the father is injured or ill or simply not capable of supporting the family alone, and UNselfishly return to work. That doesn't always equal being able to run home or to the daycare and nurse every time the child needs it.

People need to respect other people's choices. If they see someone feeding an infant a bottle, and they nursed their babies; or if they see someone nursing and chose to bottle feed, be glad the child is being fed, and move on.

It's called "earning a living", dear. Perhaps while being sequestered in your suburban monster home, driving the three quarter ton truck that you required to haul around your nine pound baby, on the streets with no sidewalks (because after all, if someone doesn't have a car they don't belong there), you've forgotten that.

The vast majority of women with children who have "jobs" (that seems to be a dirty word for you, I won't use it again, I promise) have them not because they're bored, but because if they don't work they'll be breast-feeding all right, on the street. I know it's an alien concept, dear, but bear with me.

I realise that life can be so very difficult when, all around you, you see evidence that other people don't live up to your fantasy of what perfect motherhood means. How trying it must be to see all of those women "working" (sorry again) when you're out and about shopping and lunching with the other yummy mummies when they should be at home with the shark-like grip of a four-year-old on their boobs.

It must drive you to distraction to see a female sales clerk with a wedding band carrying your Armanis to the fitting room for you and knowing from the support garments she's clearly wearing that she is torturing her child in a dark basement somewhere. Why, you must have such a difficult time just handing them your Platinum Card without saying anything.

How do you go on?

How very exhausting it must be to swan around town and have no one recognise your extra-special perfection. All you want to do is share your secret to a perfect life and Nobel winning baby with the poor souls! No wonder you feel the need to point it out to other women, particularly those you will never see socially.

It's so unfair that they give you filthy looks and tell you to piss off, when all you wanted to do was let them know that it's worthwhile to sacrifice their livelihoods, homes and health insurance, just to make you feel better.

It's all right though. When you see the tears in young women's eyes as they try to manage a stroller and a shopping cart and escape from you at the same time in the grocery store parking lot, you must feel so vindicated.

Why, bless your heart!

(I hereby banish you to the Rock of Presumptuous Ninnies, there to be ignored for eternity.)

My wife cut our babies off after the second bite. Our son had lost interest in nursing by then (six months) and wanted a cup of milk instead. Go figure.

We did have that letter a couple weeks ago about the woman who was "really" bonded to her 10-year-old. Slept with him, bathed him, talked baby talk to him. Ick!

When I hear the word impacted I think of wisdom teeth and constipation. Maybe that cranky woman had her head up her old you-know-what.

MessyONE:

(I hereby banish you to the Rock of Presumptuous Ninnies, there to be ignored for eternity.)

I think you've found their queen. Huzzah and hooray! Long live the queen.

I am not a queen and please don't accuse me of judging. If you haven't experienced the profound experience and responsiblility of being a mother following the rules of nature, you can't know what you're missing and it make me sad that your child might miss it.

I don't have a platinum card or armanis. I have a sense of reponsibility to my child and nature is my teacher. If you get more stisfaction from working inyour important career, fine.

Messy I love you!

Greatest post I've read in awhile.

Cancun, formula is a technology. It no more violates the "rules of nature" than using a car instead of walking, or buying food at the market instead of hunting and gathering, or using the computer that you are using rather than carving drawings onto cave walls.

There isn't anything inherently superior about things because they are "natural". Arsenic is "natural". Livesaving pharmaceuticals are "artificial".

And there certainly isn't anything superior about staying home and being a full-time mother vs. working to pay the bills, remain financially independent, and/or putting money away that might pay for things that one's child might need down the line.

You are confusing your aesthetic preferences-- which are perfectly fine for you but might not work for others-- with a mandate from Nature or God that one is not at liberty to disobey.

Further, note how your argument has drifted away from safety. This is what I was talking about when I said that there was so much bound up in this debate. People who believe strongly about breastfeeding feel much deeper connections to the practice than just that it might prevent an ear infection or two. Rather, formula symbolizes things about modern society that breastfeeding advocates don't like.