OH praise you for this. I have a dear friend who has malformed milk ducts and can not physically breastfeed her children. She is often bullied (mostly in Catholic circles) as somehow being unwilling to sacrifice for her children because she bottle feeds. There is no reason any woman should have to explain why she nurses or bottle feeds her baby.

I myself make tons of milk, but this is a blessing and I know it. I did nothing to create my body this way and all the glory goes to God for my ability to feed my baby with my body. Anyone who takes personal glory for their lactation needs a lesson in humility.

Hear hear!

Yup. Nailed it.

Here Here! Very well said Simcha, and a needed commentary indeed. We are too quick to judge and scoff at women who do not breastfeed (the same way people scoff at me for being pregnant all the time!) when really there are so many factors for people and at the end of the day, a baby at a breast does not a soul save; fear tactics are cruel and unnecessary (especially where pregnant women are concerned!).  As always I am nodding my head in enthusiastic agreement with every word as I sip my morning coffee and ignore my small children!

Why do we as mothers, knowing how difficult it is to be a parent, do this to one another? I love you for this article, even though my body makes tons of milk and my kids, so far, have been champion eaters. I’m well aware that all of this is a gift from God and has no reflection on my own aptitude as a parent.

Women in America get a raw deal. There’s great pressure to breastfeed, but at the same time there are all sorts of contradictory cultural pressures that make it difficult, or for some women impossible. Many women are expected to work away from home and pump their milk, which is not only time-consuming, but for most women doesn’t stimulate milk supply adequately; they’re expected to obey unwritten rules about not nursing in public (which means they have to either stay home all the time or disrupt their milk supply by using bottles when they go out); and worst of all, they have to deal with images everywhere of breasts in a sexualized context. Breast-feeding may be medically fashionable, but bottle-feeding mores still rule.

This is a topic near and dear to my heart.    I breastfed all my biological children, some more than others.    I really believe exclusively breastfeeding my first destroyed my health for years, if not permanently.    One day when my oldest child was around two, I was watching some lady on Good Morning America talking about breastfeeding’s superiority when she all of a sudden mentions the women who shouldn’t breastfeed. There was chart showing any one of these factors that should cause you to rethink breastfeeding - I had every single one of them with my oldest.  Yet all around me after my first was born, all I was receiving was pressure to breastfeed, pressure that was disguised as “support.”  My mom, my sisters, my sisters in law, even my mother in law who never breastfed any of her own ten.    Breastfeeding (and pregnancies and deliveries) came easily to the other women in my family.  Exclusively breastfeeding my first was a living hell for me.
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My mom feels so guilty about her attitude toward me at that time that she now tells moms who are having difficulty breastfeeding to call me.  She knows I’ll give them an earful about the nursing Nazis.  And a little history lesson about how some babies used to die if their mothers couldn’t afford a nursemaid - not everyone can breastfeed well.   
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I strenuously object to the judgment placed on women who are bottle feeding.  There’s nothing else like it in all of motherhood.    I like to point out the car seat parallel.  Everyone knows the pricey Britax is the safest, but nobody’s looking at the woman strapping her kid into a Graco thinking, “tsk, tsk!” or even, “poor lady, she can’t afford a Britax.”  Mothers have to make decisions that are best for the whole family.    Other people really need to butt out.
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I was a much happier nurser with my now 4 y.o. who went back and forth between breast and bottle.  I was a better mother to him and I bonded better with him.  He’s also a healthier kid.  He may well be as smart as the oldest but as he is my child number 5, he’s been raised by wolves so I doubt we’ll ever know.

I didn’t breastfeed my children. My reasons are nobody’s business. They are adults, healthy, love me & the SanctiMommies ought to chill out.

I’m just wondering, have there always been such contradictory simultaneous demands on mothers, or is it a modern thing? I mean, home-schoolers are told they should send their kids to school while in some circles mothers feel guilty for not home-schooling. Working mothers feel guilty for not being home and at-home mothers feel guilty for not making money. It’s counter-cultural to have a big family, yet when people ask how many kids I have and I tell them, they often respond by telling me why they couldn’t have more kids than they had. If I spend time cleaning my house I feel guilty about the time I didn’t spend with my children - - and _everyone_ feels guilty about not spending more time with their kids - - and if I spend time with my kids I feel guilty about my dirty house. And let’s not even talk about cooking and nutrition and exercise and weight…is it possible to feel guilty about baking too many cookies and about not baking enough cookies at the same time? Is all this mother-guilt a modern phenomenon or is it just one more result of original sin? And now I need to stop taking some time for myself, you know, the me-time that our culture tells us we are morally obligated to have, and take care of the children I’m ignoring.

.......I dunno. I have read the book that that image was taken from. It is called “Milk, Money, and Madness: The Culture and Politics Of Breastfeeding” and basically the whole thing is about the awful, awful, immoral marketing practices of formula companies in the third world that take advantage of already existing cultural ideas (rich women formula feed, etc.) The woman in the photo was told she couldn’t nurse twins by a hospital that was being mainly supported by a formula company. And there ARE babies in the US of A that die b/c they are on formula. Necrotizing enterocolitis being one such problem. Whether or not that picture is the right thing to galvanize women to breastfeed…and I guess it seems probably not based on the other comments, most of the huge formula companies are seeking profits, and they do it at the cost of lives of babies in the third world, and that is not to be ignored. Perhaps that photo would work better in a campaign of awareness against a formula company.

Let me ask this, though. Does anyone get offended being told that their baby could be low birth weight if they smoke while they are pregnant? Or that their baby could have asthma, or if you are shown a picture of a tar-filled placenta? I have always wondered why there is a lot of outrage over encouraging women (sometimes by extreme measures) to breastfeed, but not so much when it comes to encouraging them not to smoke or drink while they are pregnant.

My kids are all adopted.  I was bottle-feeding one of them one day at the park, as the others played.  I got ACCOSTED by some breast-feeding zealot for not breast-feeding.  I calmly said,  “Yes, breast-feeding is best, but my kids are adopted.”  She took a step back and then started in on me about how even adoptive mothers could breast feed, and did I know about this that and the other thing. 

Crazy….

this article is a great service to mothers, thank you! You are a right, a horrific way to “promote” breastfeeding. 
However, I do see breastfeeding as a sometimes moral issue.  In our own culture there are many people who choose to bottlefeed out of convenience in getting back to their as close to pre-baby life as possible.  It becomes a moral issue when selfishness plays a role.  I am in NO way saying people who bottlefeed are selfish. I AM saying when people choose to bottlefeed so they do not have to parent their child, it is.  They hire a lactation consultant, and when things don’t work out, say they “tried” so they don’t have to feel too guilty.  Many people don’t want to be inconveienced with a lifestyle change of motherhood…they carry on going to the gym, have their nanny wake and feed baby, work, social outtings, etc.

What Abigail said seems to be the dominant message sometimes:  whatever you’re doing in terms of parenting, it’s probably wrong.  Thankfully, there’s always someone there to tell you (or show you graphic images during prenatal visits).
I really appreciate the article!  I’m expecting my first baby in just a few weeks, and I’m planning on breastfeeding (hopefully) exclusively, but I’m just sickened by some of the things I’ve seen said by breastfeeding moms to non-breastfeeding moms.  I feel like I’ll be put on trial if I don’t end up being able to breastfeed exclusively for a year, haha.  It’s completely ridiculous though; my mom supplemented my younger sister with formula after going back to work, and I have two bottle-fed nieces, and all three babies were/are just as adorably tubby and healthy (not sick any more often) as any breastfed baby I’ve met.

@Cindy- I completely agree.  The choices you make for your children are just that- YOUR choices.  But I wonder if maybe you missed part of Simcha’s bigger point?  Mothering is the most public act of intimacy most of us will ever engage in.  As mothers, we should treat all mothers with love and kindness- not just the ones who agree with our opinions.  Calling each other names (though “SanctiMommy” is clever), never helps keep the dialog on a positive or productive level.

THANK YOU!!! Yes, breast is best, and all my life I wanted to have babies and do the all-natural birth and breastfeeding bit. But my body is apparently wracked with all manner of reproductive maladies, so we adopted. Our daughter was raised on formula because we had little choice in the matter. Because of her apparently superior mix of genes, she’s one of the tallest and physically strongest 4-year-olds in her preschool class. I’m sure she would have benefitted even more from breastmilk, but I couldn’t give that to her. There were some who insisted I try, and I’ve heard it CAN be done to some extent, but I really didn’t think the benefits of the minimal amount of milk I MIGHT have been able to produce outweighed the massive amount of work required to produce ANYTHING, especially in the midst of dealing with first-baby exhaustion and schedule shock. As an adoptive mom, I often get the guilt over any number of things I can’t give my kid that other moms can, and it’s tough. I don’t need the breastfeeding lobby heaping MORE guilt on me the next time we adopt and begin buying formula in bulk. Breast is best, but formula is a viable alternative.

Amen.  I am a self-proclaimed boob nazi, and I hate to see people give up or not try - breast feeding, even when it’s tough, is so rewarding.  However, I know women who really could not nurse, and they are great mothers who shouldn’t feel like second-class citizens.  And I happen to think some of the stats to promote breastfeeding are a bit skewed which doesn’t help anything.

There is a way to be supportive and encouraging without being condemning.  Thanks for this really good article.

Great commentary, Simcha.  You and your family are in my prayers as you anticipate the arrival of your newest family member.  Congratulations!

Just a thought.  Is this article about breastfeeding or what’s inappropriate info-sharing?

I know some women have a need to use formula and support that, but I don’t think the health bonuses of breastfeeding are that “out there” (maybe that’s just where I live).  And it’s true that the marketing for formula feeding is disingenuous at times (American advertizing! what a shock!).

Having said all that, Simcha, that image doesn’t seem at all appropriate on the ceiling above an exam table, or the first way to talk to women about formula/breast milk in the USA.  Agreed there.

Thank you for this thoughtful article Simcha. I am a woman who couldn’t feed her first child. Until it happened, I had never imagined that it was a possibility. The shame and guilt I have felt and still feel are hard to describe. I don’t think that formula company advertisers have always been truthful or right in their claims, but that doesn’t mean that formula is poison. The attitude that puts that poster up to say “You should breast feed” is the kind that made every day of my son’s first six months of life even harder to bear. Breast feeding should be promoted and encouraged, when it’s possible it is best! A beautiful gift of self with tangible benefits for both mother and child! However, iit is possible to say “Breast is best” without spreading the lie that to do anything else is morally bankrupt.

THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!  THANK YOU! for writing this.  God bless you.  I’m in tears that you have written so eloquently what I, a mom who tried to breastfeed and had many obstacles and finally realized formula was what would help our family work best, have wanted to say so many times.

Thank you.

Anne:  feeding a baby formula is not the same as exposing a baby to second-hand smoke.  I totally agree that formula companies put profits first, and subtly discourage breastfeeding.  I don’t fault anyone for taking a stand against that.  But it’s completely different to attack mothers who formula feed who might have very valid reasons for doing so.

@Anne The point of that book shouldn’t be that formula is bad, but that the marketing practices of formula companies are abhorrent, and ought to cease.  Their collusion with OBs here in the US is quite bad enough - a month after my last miscarriage, I got a case of formula in the mail!  I didn’t even make it to my first OB visit, but the office I scheduled a visit with apparently gave my name and address to a formula company!  I can’t decide whether this is a HIPPA violation or not.

And the reason women get upset about this bullying but not about pictures of tar-filled placentas is that it’s a dagger between the ribs of their identity as women.  It’s the knowledge that your body has failed in a fundamental way, and it’s the same awful sensation as having a necessary c-section after a failed induction, or when you’re ‘gently encouraged’ to have more than one child when you’ve had miscarriage after miscarriage for years and your one child is your miracle baby.  These things hurt us at our very core.  Jabbing the conscience of the women who do use formula in a selfish and careless manner is not justification enough to compensate for wounding even one woman like this.

Amen, Simcha.  As usual, you nail it. 

I am convinced God sent me my particular children in order to take me down a notch and teach me to be more compassionate and gracious towards others.  I was a breastfeeding zealot before I actually had a baby—and wouldn’t you know, she was premature, had no suck reflex, plus due to some rather stressful circumstances I had low milk supply and just could not pump enough to sustain her.  I tried my hardest for two months and finally gave up tearfully, sure that she was going to be sickly and have a low IQ as a result.  And all the helpful comments from the breastfeeding nazis did not do much to make me feel better. 

Eventually I realized that formula, surprisingly enough, is not poison—my daughter grew and thrived, and in fact turned out to be gifted as far as IQ.  I am grateful to live in a culture where good-quality formula is readily available, and to have enough money to afford it.  I did go on to nurse my other children successfully, but I will never sit in judgment of a bottle-feeding mother again. 

That being said, the way formula companies have immorally promoted formula feeding in Third World countries is nothing short of murderous.  There is a special place in hell reserved for those who told poor women that they had to bottle feed despite the fact that they had neither the money to afford formula nor access to clean water to make it.

I’m typing this with one hand while bottle feeding my baby to say: thanks for this! I love breastfeeding, but due to epic difficulties usually have to throw in the towel after about six weeks. Ironically, I used to be one of the breastfeeding “Nazis” who thought of formula as a half step above pesticide. God evidently saw that as being a great opportunity for a little lesson in humility. :)

WATER!!!  While your point about accosting women about breastfeeding is important to take, the small point you made about the water is too important to miss.

While we have millions of reasons to hate the UN,  add to your list their decision to refuse to make clean water a priority in third world countries a higher priority.  They insist that access to contraception is vital but don’t see walking over 5 miles each way to reach clean water (their standard of accessiblity) a big deal.

I agree with Anne that while, in a first world country, breast/bottle is not a moral issue, the tactics of formula companies in the third world certainly are a moral issue, and it is good to be aware that what is a matter of choice here is often a matter of cynical manipulation and misinformation elsewhere.

Thank you so much for this. I felt like such a failure when I couldn’t breastfeed my child because of a mood stabilizer (and was horrified that my OB had never told me I couldn’t). I planned for so long to nurse my baby and was heartbroken when I couldn’t, and felt even more bullied by the breast is best camps than I did by my own insecurities. This should be required reading and discussion in prenatal classes.

The mom’s may have different lives, circumstances etc., but the babies all need the same thing.  They all came into the world needing to be breast fed, not just for physical but for developmental, emotional, and spiritual reasons.  I get what you are saying about that image. And about “bullying”.  But I think you are dangerously close to saying that formula feeding vs. breastfeeding is nothing more than a matter of choice. It’s the norm. The physiological norm which we are to have serious reason to deviate from.  Yes, many people DO have serious reason to deviate from it. Most women are demeaned or coerced into NOT breastfeeding their children, FAR more than women are made to feel “guilt” about formula feeding. Formula should be the rare exception (as it is in other countries around the world where breastfeeding problems are dealt with MUCH more effectively) not just the other, equally good option. Hundreds of babies in the US DO die every year from formula feeding that causes necrotizing entercolitis among other things. There are risks. I agree sensitivity and charity must be practiced.  Consideration for the variety of different things women face should be taken.  However lets not mince the truth in favor of feel good-ism. And how about some better quality formula for those who really have no choice?

Oh, man. I should never have clicked on that link as I sit here BF’ing my first child after getting home from the clinic where they told me she isn’t gaining enough. I guess I still have to learn that I AM a sensitive viewer now!

That photo is unprofessional, insulting, and completely uncalled for. If I were you, I would be complaining to that midwife’s nearest superior, or to the woman herself.

I agreed with everything except the last sentence.  Breast feeding IS a moral issue.  Being able to give the best and choosing not to….how could that NOT be a moral issue?  However, even moral education needs to be done sensitively, with love, and meeting people where they are.  That picture WAS bullying.  Breast feeding also IS moral issue.  The two are not mutually exclusive.

Rebekka (and anyone else for that matter who is being told their child isn’t gaining enough weight), doctors go by the weight-gain of a formula-fed baby when they determine that a child is not gaining enough weight. If you are breastfeeding your baby, then he/she is not going to gain weight at the same rate. So, if the doctor tells you your child is not gaining enough weight and tries to convince you to transition to formula, just tell him he can eat it.

I completely agree with you, Kateri, couldn’t have said it better. 

God made our bodies grow bigger breasts than men for one reason:  to feed our babies the food they were meant to have, not something made in a lab.  Formula can never compare to mother’s milk, which changes at each feeding to best suit the baby’s needs (antibodies against infections, etc.)  No one should make a mother feel terribly when there is a valid reason to bottle feed, but often women give up too soon, without even talking to a lactation consultant… it’s the easy thing to do, so you can ‘get on’ with your life - i.e. - leave the baby with others more conveniently.  Also, many people around the mom will encourage her to bottle feed, perhaps themselves thinking it’s no big deal or not wanting to make the mom feel guilty.  Bottle feeding discourages the natural bond between mother and child, and encourages separation.  We don’t need ‘scare’ tactics, but we do need more education about the vastly superior benefits of breastfeeding.  I think there are many women who still don’t understand that although formula comes closer now, it’s still no match for breast milk.  I see formula and it’s attendant industry primarily as the enemy of a mother’s irreplaceable role in her child’s life.  (There are actually breast milk banks that will give moms who are having trouble with milk supply breast milk, kind of like modern day wet nurses!)

I whole-heartedly agree with the commenter who said women in the US are in a rough spot in re: breastfeeding. I have two children, one I breastfed and one I formula fed. My oldest- my son- has had problems digesting milk, including my own milk, from day one. He would literally projectile spit three quarters of whatever milk product he consumed for the first year of his life. Add to that the fact that even the professional help couldn’t get him to latch on properly and his tendency (to this day) to get constipated easily by milk products and the stress factor was insane. After about two months of killing myself trying to pump and watching him spit up seventy-five percent of it I put him on soy formula at the recommendation of our pediatrician. He immediately stopped the projectile spitting and what he started keeping down most of his milk. At the time I got all sorts of snide comments from the avid breast feeders I know and was constantly trying to explain myself- which was ridiculous becauseI did what was best for my son and my own sanity (which is also good for my son).
I breastfed my daughter exclusively for six months and supplemented a little with some baby food and finger foods when she got older and more interested in what we were doing at the table. She had no problems latching at all and we seemed to just naturally fit together. And I still got to hear about how crass I was for nursing in public (even though it was under a nursing cover) from my non-breastfeeding contingency of friends and family, and I have one grandmother that literally asked me every single time we saw her when I was going to stop all “that mess,” get my daughter on a bottle and start feeding her “real food.” It seems you just can’t win sometimes.
And you know what else? All those statistics about breastfeeding being the miraculous prevention of every medical condition known to man didn’t work out for us: my daughter, even though she nursed until she was almost 19-months-old, has bad seasonal allergies and is borderline asthmatic. In fact, aside from my son getting occasionally mildly constipated from eating one or two extra pieces of cheese, my daughter actually has more severe health issues than my son. She’s certainly at the doctor more often because her allergies induce mild asthmatic episodes. We have to have a bronchiodilator syrup on hand, just in case, and she sleeps with a humidifier in her room to keep her airways clear.
I still agree that breast is best and would do it again in a heartbeat. But, as with everything else child-related, it really is a lot more complicated an issue than some folks want to make out. I really wish we mothers would cut other moms more slack than we do. No one’s perfect and it’s hard enough to raise children without someone else nitpicking every thing we do.

Picking up on A’s theme—no woman should have to justify to other women **why** she’s not nursing her baby.  I have a friend who has never nursed any of her babies.  My guess (only a guess) is that she’s on psych meds that are not safe for nursing. 

I’ve never asked her, BECAUSE IT’S NONE OF MY BUSINESS!  If she wanted to share, I’m sure she would.  But nobody should have to share their medical issues with their homeschooling group, PTA friends, distant-cousins-at-Thanksgiving, etc.  I appreciate and support breastfeeding (and laughed my head off at spending a third of your life producing milk, Simcha, ME TOO!!!)  But sometimes I feel like the comments and criticisms being described in the combox are reflective of a much larger problem, of our society no longer valuing or respecting other people’s privacy.

Well I have done my very best to breastfeed all my kids, emotional issues, low milk supply, lack of sleep and all.  Do I pat myself on the back.  OF COURSE I do!!  It was a heck of a lot of hard work!  The only times I stopped before 7 months was when I had a recurrent, horrible infection that made nursing physically torturous, and when my baby bit…and bit…and refused to quit biting and finding the whole thing hilarious no matter how loud I screamed!  I have given my babies bottles in public and I have breastfed in public both many times, and I will say this - I have never EVER been made to feel bad or ashamed about bottle feeding in public!!  But the same is not true of discreet breastfeeding.  So when you have a baby who wants to nurse every 45 min. 24/7, and won’t take a bottle, are you supposed to be imprisoned in your house?  Are you supposed to expect your husband to go grocery shopping (cause you know, there’s a SMALL chance he won’t come home with nothing but tortillas, hot dogs and orange juice).  Honestly as much as people talk online and etc, most women still bottlefeed.  And society is still much much more accepting of that than they are of actually seeing a breastfeeding mom (and I’m talking even under a blanket with a nursing shirt on).  So yes it goes both ways.  But would I make another mom feel ashamed that she didn’t breastfeed?  No, well not unless she specifically told me she did it because she doesn’t care about her child’s health.  But no I never have.  Breastfeeding is so so hard, I don’t fault anyone who gives up.  I totally understand!! I do think it’s wrong not to at least give it your best shot though, but those women need help not judgement.  They need to be told the truth that ANY breastfeeding is better than none!!

Simcha, Thank-you for this post. You said it all and as usual, very well.
I can’t think of anything to add except to share that I am very very pro-breastfeeding, but with me it was hit and miss. I am very high strung and I had health and stress issues that sometimes meant I had to go on medication so I *couldn’t* breast feed.  That picture, at 36 or so weeks in one of MY pregnancies, emotionally fragile as I always was during that time of pregnancy…would have put me closer to the edge. I’m sure I am not the only one like that. I hope you said something to the midwife. She aught to know better.
M~

Thank you for this. I’ve enduring sneering comments from strangers regarding my use of formula to feed my babies (many health issues, too many to list here, that preclude breastfeeding), and it hurts.  My sister in law, when I mentioned not being able to breastfeed, rolled her eyes and said, “Yeah, it’s tough, but I just made my mind up to stick with it.” (Subtext:” You lazy, worthless mom.)

While I know that my babies have thrived (and honestly, once the kids are weaned, I can never tell a difference between my kids and their breastfed peers!) and haven’t suffered any IQ deficiences, nor are they obese or DOOMED, I still feel that stigma.  I just wish we could live and let live when it comes to parents who love their kids and are taking good care of them.  Beyond that, everything else is a parenting decision.  The only Gold Standard in Parenting is, are the kids all right?  Then you’re good.

Hulk smash!  Oh, I hope you sent this article link to your midwife.  My hospital is doing the same kind of thing…in order to register with the maternity clinic you basically have to sign a bunch of waivers that indicate your plans for breastfeeding or not breastfeeding and that “yes, I understand if I don’t breastfeed I am a horrible mother.” 

What idiotic nonsense.  Why can’t we just be reasonable, and say “all other things being equal, breast milk is the best source of food for an infant.”  All other things being EQUAL.  As in, if you actually CANNOT breastfeed, formula in first world countries is perfectly good and lots of very healthy, well-adjusted grown ups were fed formula.  As in, if there are physical or emotional impediments that seriously threaten the well-being of the mother, formula is probably a lot healthier for baby than having totally miserable and unable-to-cope mommy.

I have always found breastfeeding to come pretty easily (thank Heaven), but I also am prone to post-partum depression. So if I was having a very, very difficult time with breastfeeding, I would switch to formula in a heartbeat.  My baby and my other kids don’t need me falling off the deep end just to die on the hill of “Breast is Best.”  And that is just NOT the business of random passers-by in the park!

And so I say again. Hulk. Smash.

I have exclusively breastfeed three children.  In my experience, there are both pros and cons to breastfeeding.  For instance, when only the mother can feed a child all day and all night, co-sleeping becomes a logical way to make that work.  And co-sleeping itself has its pros and cons.  I love it and have always done it in a safe and careful way.  But it is a cross for my husband. 

I have also found that breastfeeding, once a mother gets experienced enough at it, can almost be TOO easy.  It can become too easy to whip out a breast and use it to occupy a child, rather than have to get up and occupy the child in a different way.

Third, it can impact fertility.  This is a benefit when moms are young and don’t want to have too many kids too fast.  But it’s not such a benefit as one gets older, pushes 40, and is having trouble getting pregnant, probably partly because of age and partly because of the habit of breastfeeding.

I agree 100% with what Abigail said about the “contradictory simultaneous demands on mothers”.  This is absolutely my experience.

Great article! I have five children, three were able to nurse, and two couldn’t. One of those two had breastmilk out of bottles for the first couple of months, then formula. The other had formula the whole time. They are all healthy happy children, and the one who had formula the whole time is convinced that she was breastfed just like her little sister. We practiced bottle feeding on demand, so she got all the closeness of nursing without the actual nursing. It’s so important to be loving to one another, especially new and expectant mothers. I will never understand why women are so tough on each other about everything related to mothering, from birth choices to breastfeeding (or not). It’s hard enough being a mom without people telling you you’re not doing it right.

Important topic.  I can’t get past that the bottom line is that “we” feel the need to judge any mother for anything.  Isaiah 55:8 “for my thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not my ways, declares Yahweh”.

Great article, and I have to say, I also loved the first comment from Babs.  The money quote: “Anyone who takes personal glory for their lactation needs a lesson in humility.”  lol!  So funny and true.  It’s food either way!

Simcha, thank you so much for this. I had trouble with breast feeding but gave it my best shot for 3 months or so. Babies were much happier with a bottle and therefore so was I. They are wonderful healthy kids and smarter than most so formula didn’t hurt them. Breast feeding is not a moral absolute since there are too many factors too weigh in deciding what is best for the child and mother. I also had to have c sections for all my children. Those discussion hurt too. My body was built a certain way and to my disappointment it was not built to drop ‘em or feed ‘em as some think is best. I did the best I could with what God gave me. How sad that some mothers think that is morally deficient. There are very few women that I trust because of the sanctimonious like those above. Women can be the meanest creatures on earth and to each other no less. God bless and lots of prayers for you and your family.

Okay, I just want to give my perspective.

1. I was somewhat offended by KK’s statements.  Yes, I am sure there are some mothers who do act from selfish motives.  But some mothers (and fathers too!) need to get back to establish a reasonable routine in their lives.  We can’t afford a nanny, but what the heck is wrong with wanting to get back to the gym?  Staying healthy enough to raise your kids is a moral issue too.  Also, sometimes mothers need to get away from their kids for a while to recharge.  I did my best to encourage my wife to get back into some non-mother related activity as soon as possible after the birth of our first child and will do it again with our second child.  One night out of the house every week or two allows her to recharge.

2. I will never criticize a mother for choosing not to breast feed.  After seeing the troubles that my wife went through with our first; the amount of pain and tears shed with each feeding before finally giving up on breast feeding?  If any one, doctor, midwife or other mother tries to tell me my wife didn’t try hard enough, they better be ready to listen to a rather lengthy lecture from me!

3. I was quite happy that we got sent a can of formula (though whether it was a result of the midwife practice we signed up with or the doctor, I am not sure).  With our second child, several nights in, my wife was having trouble and all but ready to give up again.  Having the formula allowed me to take a couple of feedings a day and probably allowed my wife to continue breast feeding to the point where now some days the new baby only gets one or two bottles of formula a day.

3. Lets remember there are advantages to bottle feeding.  The father can take a more active role earlier in the process.  Its easier for my wife to get the sleep she needs so badly if I can make sure she only needs to get up once a night to feed the baby.  I also get to bond with the baby earlier and more directly than I did with our first son.

Anyway, thanks Simcha for a great article.

Scaring someone half to death(especially sn emotionally fragile pregnant woman) is a terrible way to try to convince them to do anything. I too am an enthusiastic nursing mother but the only woman I knew who upset me by using formula was one who was just trying to get pregnant within 6 weeks after every birth and she didn’t want breastfeeding to interfere with that.

This reminds me of those women who jump to the conclusion that a Catholic woman who doesn’t have a large number of children must have used contraception and it is never a good idea to unjustifiably accuse anyone of a mortal sin.

I would like to point out that this attitude sometimes comes from official-sounding Catholic sources.  When my husband and I took our CCL NFP course before we married (about 5 years ago), there was a section of the book suggesting that it was *mortally sinful* not to breastfeed your baby unless there was a medical reason to do otherwise.  The authors cited some unpublished dissertation by a priest.  Now, I realize that they Kipleys (sp? I’m too lazy to go find the book on my shelf) are not the Magisterium; they also didn’t say that this was absolutely for sure the case. However, this class was taught at a Catholic church and a mandated part of our marriage preparation, and it required the students to seriously consider the possibility that they might go to hell if they did not repent the sin of voluntarily bottle-feeding. 
I’ve heard that CCL has redone their curriculum, and hopefully this was cut, but this kind of thing is just insane—especially considering the pastoral needs of the diverse population that winds up in a class that is required to get married in the church.

Simply LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this!

As a member of the older generation, I am sick and tired of the harpies and shrews who come out of the woodwork and attempt to bully even those who cannot. It isn’t just breastfeeding. I have younger, adopted children, I being in my 50s and the kids presently in their tweens. They are a few, but these bullies are a vocal, obnoxious few. They are the only ones who what to feed their children, not just breast milk, but only organic foods and no candy, cookies, popcorn and host of other things!! How we are survived to the 21st century is beyond me, without the “help” of these know-it-alls (cough cough). Most recently, I had to take abuse from a zealot while my children attended a gym class.

For crying out loud, women in their 20s and 30s who think you know everything, you did NOT invent feeding babies, homeschooling or anything else!!! Relax, tend your own children, and leaves the rest of us to do what we choose to do on behalf of our families!!! You are mean, you run people off from activities, and you are so self-righteous!!! I promise not to give your children candy from the close-out counter if you just leave me in peace!

Thank you for this article, Simcha. I struggled to breastfeed my baby (seven months old, and my first) in the beginning; he had a poor latch that made nursing painful, and he continued to lose weight during his first month. I felt horrible that I could not even feed my own baby. Breastfeeding is hard. Really hard. I ended up supplementing with formula, but every time I gave him a bottle I would feel despair that my body had failed and that he was only satisfied by a bottle of formula. Through all this, I also experienced the pressure from both sides to breastfeed, but not in public; to stay home with my baby and also return to work as soon as possible; to nurse on demand but get my baby on a schedule; to get him sleeping through the night as soon as possible, but also to answer his cries immediately so he felt loved and important. Only now am I able to tune out all the conflicting noise and just be happy with the decisions I’m making. My baby is healthy, very happy, confident, and friendly and what business does anyone who is not his doctor have with where his nutrition is coming from?

Very well written, Simcha!  I myself had a terrible time with nursing at the start, my milk didn’t come in for FIVE days.  My poor kid was starving, not sleeping, we were all a mess.  I had to supplement with formula for a day before my milk appeared out of nowhere.  I can totally understand someone quitting at that point because I nearly did.  It was just luck that my milk came in the next day, if it hadn’t I definitely would have turned to formula.  Watching your newborn infant scream for hours on end because he’s hungry isn’t something any mom should have to endure!  Letting your kid starve is a sin, not using formula.  I am really surprised that midwife would have that picture up there.  Seems very insensitive and extremely misleading.

What a shame. That picture could have been better used to fundraise for clean water in India instead of guilting American women who have the luxury to choose what is best for thier child!

@Anne - Oh Good Grief!  It is impossible to pinpoint bottle feeding as the source of enterocolitis - breast fed babies can get it as well.  Does breastfeeding lessen the risk?  Yes.  Did my premie child need blood transfusions from extended severe jaundice because I was exclusively breastfeeding?  Maybe - I don’t know, but I do know that breastfeeding increases the risk of jaundice so by your standard the answer would be an unequivocal yes.
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What’s more important - breastfeeding or the mother’s emotional health?  Breastefeeding or the marriage?  Breastfeeding or the welfare of the other children?  The bottom line is you have no idea what somebody is enduring in their own life and what’s led them to the choices they’ve made.   
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A child strapped into a $40 Graco dies in a car accident.  A $200 Britax would’ve been safer.  Was the mother morally wrong for choosing to pay her student loan instead of investing in the pricier Britax?  What -  She couldn’t handle a couple of calls from some bill collectors so she put her child’s safety at risk in a cheapo carseat?  Ridiculous, right?  We have no idea if the child would’ve lived or died in the pricey car seat.  It’s the same with breastfeeding.  You have no idea what goes on in someone’s life or if the outcome for any given child would’ve been different if that child had been breast or bottle fed. 
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Please keep your judgments to yourself.

Thanks for posting this, Simcha.  My wife and I conceived only with great difficulty and then my wife had difficulty breastfeeding once the baby was born.  Our daughter often did not want to nurse, even when she was hungry, and when she did she was not getting enough milk.  My wife tried a number of supplemental strategies. I can remember a bottle of formula clipped to a lamp shade with a plastic tube flowing downward into the baby’s mouth while breast feeding.  It was awful for all of us, but especially for my wife who felt inept at feeding her baby.  She, too, had absorbed decades-worth of “breast-is-best” rhetoric, which probably started out with the best of intentions, but later got twisted and perverted by the “agenda people.”  Indeed, breast IS best…when it works.  When it doesn’t, when there are problems, you do what you have to do nourish your baby.  Simple as that, and people need to summon the grace to shut their mouths, back, off, and let mothers (and fathers as the case may be) do what they need to do to get the job done.  I’ve had it with nutritionists, doulas, midwives, doctors, grandparents and other self-proclaimed experts who think they have some right to push their own agendas onto mothers and their babies.  I looked at that photo, and I’m appalled.  If I had been with my wife for something like that I’d have gone ballistic!  Mothers do indeed have a moral responsibility to care for their children, but fathers have a moral responsibility to defend the family.  Sadly, most women will never understand much less care about this aspect our masculine hearts, especially in this evil, anti-father culture of ours, but the fact remains that all REAL men stand ready to kick @$$ when our wives and children are assaulted, whether physically or psychologically.  That’s what fathers are for, and we need them around regardless of what the “experts” say.

I always breastfed my babies.  But my last one was not getting enough nourishment as evidently I was soooooo stressed, my milk was deplete of essential vitamins.  Thanks to a friend who brought my baby’s starvation behaviors to my attention, I was able to put him on big bad formula!  I agree with your bottom line, these health food activists / breastfeeding activists can have warped minds, drive you nuts and lack common sense.  You see this odd type of mentality everywhere today, in all sorts of things.  Drives me nuts.

Hypoplastic breasts particularly with uneven size, are an issue. I have 5 healthy children.  I worked at breast feeding each one.  I enthusiastically went to le leche league meetings and was gung ho to go. My first was a month old and very colicky when I went to have her weighed and she was a pound less than her birth weight.  Big panic.  A very kind and experience listened to all my descriptions of breast feeding and said “breast feed als long as you can tonight and then give her a bottle and see what happens.  And please know you worked hard and let go of the guilt.  Not all woman can breastfeed.“That little girl chugged down 3 ounces burped and cooed in contentment for the first time in her short life.  My husband and I cried.  Four children later and years of ignoring contemptuous attitudes from nurses and the breast feeding police I read about a condition that described my breasts and problem completely- hypoplastic or tubular breasts.  Even thought I thought I had come to terms with not succeeding at breastfeeding over 20 years I cried.  There was a reason.  This is a short definition. if you are a woman experiencing issues this may be you, do further research.  “Hypoplasia-There is one exception to the rule about breast size/shape and breastfeeding ability, and that is that few women have insufficient glandular tissue in their breasts. In other words they simply don’t have enough milk producing cells, and these women can then experience milk supply problems. This condition is called breast hypoplasia or hypoplastic breasts.”. God Bless you Simcha in your child birth experience.

AWESOME!!!

Amen sister.  As a BFing mom who struggles mightily with the whole thing for a variety of reasons (all kids have been tongue-tied, lazy nursers, colicky babies, I have anatomical issues, over- and under-supply issues, painful letdown, pain with feeding, depression, weight gain, irritability, etc), it is good to hear this once in a while.  We ended up formula feeding part time with the last one because I just couldn’t keep up and with older children to deal with, I couldn’t sit in a chair and nurse for 18 hours a day like I did when there was only one.  I’d like to do the same with the current baby, but the stinker won’t take a bottle from anyone, regardless of what’s in it.

@Kateri.  Breastfeeding is a spiritual issue.  Really?  Sheesh.

I bottle fed one baby and breastfed the other.  The bottle fed baby, school is/was a breeze, never gets sick.  Breastfed baby, school is difficult and is always getting sick. 

I get so tired of the Mom Nazis.  If everyone would do it just like “me”, or parent just like “me”, or have fertility just like “me”, then all would be well with the world.  All I can think of is that they haven’t raised any child to adulthood yet and don’t realize they can’t control the universe. 

If by some miracle, God were to bless me with another child at this late stage and I saw that picture on the ceiling, that OB-GYN would be getting an earful.

I had to stop reading the comments after about ten replies. I absolutely adore this article. However! Bottlefeeding is the norm. Look at the US breasteeding rates and come back to me. Bottefeeding mothers are not asked to stop feeding their child or move to the bathroom to “do that”.as a fellow nursing mom, I honestly believe there is one proven and time tested way to be a true ‘lactivist’. Stop making a three ring circus about breastfeeding and just do it. Don’t put on a martyr complex, look for battles., lecture, admonish, or pressure. If other people see you nursing as a part of real, authentic every day life, you will have done your part.

I agree.  When I first saw that picture, I was shocked at the dishonesty of it.  The baby girl died from a lack of clean water and prejudice against girls, not formula.  I first saw it when I had my first newborn foster baby and I was being told about how I should be buying breast milk (ummm my entire pay check if I worked fulltime) plus I doubt I could get social services to approve that since they needed to approve the formula.  Or how adoptive mothers could breast feed because the baby NEEDED breast milk.  Well, that baby and the next newborn have both thrived on formula and I am thankful for the research formula companies have done in order to improve their formulas so that my babies can live and grow well.

Excellent post.  Like you, I found breastfeeding easy, pleasant, and very convenient (I felt sorry for people who had to actually get up and fix a bottle in the middle of the night) but I know too many great mothers who couldn’t breastfeed for whatever reason (including my own sister) and who were miserable with guilt and sorrow despite having healthy, well-fed babies. 

I remember being in the nursing room at Nordstrom with my oldest, when he was three months old, and another woman came in to feed her child.  She started explaining her medical condition and medications to me as soon as she sat down and got the bottle out…it had reached a point, even 11 years ago, at which this poor woman felt compelled to defend herself to a total stranger and to reveal information she’d probably rather have kept private, rather than endure the judgment that rains down on women who don’t breastfeed.  I was happy to reassure her that I didn’t think any less of bottle-feeding mothers and that her baby was beautiful, but I felt just heartbroken for her.

It’s kinda like the way in which one births their children…also not a moral issue. Praying for a safe labor and delivery for you and the babe.

@Nick
I live in Denmark and 60% of babies are exclusively breastfed until 4 months, and of the remaining 40% some are partially breastfed. I don’t think they use formula statistics here. :) My daughter is still following her growth curve but they (and here the “they” are visiting health nurses, instead of pediatricians) would like her to gain a little more, so the recommendations I got were oriented at increasing production and tempting her to eat a little more (and working on her concentration skills!). Even if that proves to be not enough, they won’t recommend that I switch to formula, but that I supplement with it.

It’s still not a nice picture for any mother of a little one to look at!

This is so sad and so true. I remember feeling with my first child that if I gave her formula I might as well be giving breathing second-hand smoke in her face. I didn’t, but once, give her any. And then, I cried like a ridiculous baby. (As much I’m sure out of the utter frustration, exhaustion and delirium from the mastitis that was kicking my behind.) Back to your post ... I was bombarded with all the “breast is best” promos that instead of seeking help until I was very sick, I instead felt like a complete failure. And that is only part of the sentiment (as you mentioned) that that awful photo projects. But the underlying message is perpetuated—it’s like an NFP discussions where the folks who have never had any issue think the rest of us poor slobs are animals. It’s better to empower mothers (and each other) with knowledge and resources to make breastfeeding a reality for them if it can be. And sometimes, it just can’t. It wasn’t until my fifth child that I had to actually buy formula. The little rat (and I mean that lovingly) bit me constantly every single time I presented my breast to him. (Listen, I hear the chorus of mother’s giving me advice on that one. And they’re harmonizing with the song I sung to so many other moms.) I endured it for 4 months. Then when he was 10 months old I had to quit. I was miserable. He was miserable. He was already walking and he just wanted to go and be a big boy. And being snuggled with me, no matter how cozy I imagined I was, was not in his game plan. He’s almost three now. And guess what? He just wants to be a big boy. And he is very persistent. Who’da thought? Seriously. We should support each other to explore valid reasons why breastfeeding might not work, offer solutions for those with challenges, but always raise each other up in our efforts to be good mothers and do what’s best for our children. Formula in this country does not equal murder.

Kateri, in her own special way, just makes Simcha’s point for her ... hmmmm ...

And I had to lol at Cari, who evidently thinks she’s Cindy’s mommy lol some more.

Thanks for this.  @Judy: AMEN!!!  It never ceases to amaze me and my husband how we can be criticized by so many people for doing what we think is best for our family, no matter the issue.  To reiterate your point, we have been told: to nurse our baby, but not in front of others (even discretely, even in our own home); nurse on demand, but get baby on a schedule; have baby on you all the time (a la “attachment parenting”), but teach them independence and let baby “cry it out;” that baby should be sleeping “x” amount of time while having awake-time “x” amount of time; that people are shocked we would have another baby since we already have a boy and a girl (“Was it a surprise? Surely, you’re done now!”) yet we should also be actively trying to conceive despite having an infant (you know, otherwise you’re not “open to life”); that I should return to work at 6 weeks post-partum, but that being a SAHM was morally superior.  Oh, and btw, we should be homeschooling *and* sending our kids to private Catholic school *and* that public school is certainly good enough for those “non-elitest” types.  We’re both too conservative *and* too liberal (no, I’m not joking).
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Since when did everyone decide that their opinion was: a) wanted or b) necessary?
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I believe Chesterton had a quote along these lines… that the Church is constantly criticized for being too much of one thing while simultaneously being too much of the opposite—and that usually means things are on the right track! ;-)

Wonderful article, Simcha!  I too am a strong supporter of breastfeeding, but I hope that unless you know me well, you wouldn’t know that.  I think the judgements between mothers is especially harsh today.  I truly believe that all mothers make the best decisions they can with the information at hand-even the mother in the photo.  She was told by a health-care provider that she couldn’t breastfeed both.  Unfortunately, we know she was given erroneous information.  That does not negate the fact that she was doing the best she could with what she had.  My heart breaks for both the mother and the babies.

formula is the product of progressive feminism at the cost of our childrens health. there are obviously circumstances which can come about where the mother has no choice… but that is the bottom precent of the population of mothers who breastfeed.

take a look at the INGREDIENTS! dont be fools!  look for breast feeding support groups if you need help.

formula is full of poison, processed chemicals and crap! why the hell would you make a decision to feed that !@#$% to your NEW BORN?

the fact that this is even being disputed makes me outraged at the selfishness of this generation of mothers. can you not put your convenience aside and be a good mother?

do your research! just because its on the shelf does not mean it is safe. why do you think there might be a rise in childhood disease and leukemia? 

-breast feeding bully… of two healthy boys.

HEY Abigail on Thursday, Dec 1, 2011 8:54 AM (EST).....I have never read a more dead on, succinct summation of the impossible contradictions at the heart of this entire debate. Brava. You got it right, sista!

Well, Sabine, if you read the comments, you would hear dozens and dozens of reasons why good mothers would feed formula to their newborns.  The readers here are very forgiving, and I’m sure they will graciously welcome your apology once you get up to speed.

@Sabine:
I pray you never have a problem with breastfeeding, but what I heard from you is the height of ignorance. Please inform us what you would do if were you unable to breastfeed. While I realize there are options, most of them are cost prohibitive. I can’t wait to hear your solutions.

take a look at the INGREDIENTS! dont be fools!  look for breast feeding support groups if you need help.
formula is full of poison, processed chemicals and crap! why the hell would you make a decision to feed that !@#$% to your NEW BORN?

Hey, Sabine? Ever eat a Twinkie? How ‘bout a hamburger from a fast food joint? Maybe use some Campbells soup in your recipes? Ever, ever in your life?

All processed, and all poisonous. I must ask…why would you ever make a decision to feed that !@#$% to yourself? Don’t you KNOW BETTER?

Because truly, you do come off rather as a woman who makes it her business to know better. And to tell everyone so.

But then again, maybe

Thank you, Simcha.
Thank you, Eileen.  Thank you.

And because of my experiences, I simply now say I don’t breastfeed.  Not that I “can’t”, more like I “won’t”.  And it’s that change from “cant’” (feel sorry for poor, victim, me) to “won’t” (you selfish, modern woman, you!) that changes everything.

I don’t breastfeed.  I can’t breastfeed.  I won’t breastfeed.  It shouldn’t make a whiff of difference to anyone. 

And, just for fun: my youngest bottle-fed kid just got his scores from the SAT: perfect 800 on the writing, 710 on the reading, and 740 math.  Aww, yeah.

And Margaret is right: I already see the comboxes filled with bottle-feeding mothers giving heart-wrenching stories about why they can’t breast feed.  They are legitimate stories, and they are welcome to tell them, but please: no one owes anyone a story. 

And although some truly do feel “wracked with guilt”, “crying their eyes out” over not being able to bf, may I say: our REACTION to not breastfeeding is completely secondary.  I am not a victim.  And if you come and tell me why I MUST breastfeed, as some unsuspecting nipple nazi tried to do to me once,  I told her to do what my baby will not:  bite me.  That takes care of the “poor me” victimhood status pretty quickly and shuts them the hell up.  A little bit of backbone is even better than breast milk.  Time to stop feeling so “sad” about things.  You may as well like what you do, since so few others will; lol!

I’m not a mom, so I can’t speak to the experience of breast-feeding or otherwise, but I am somewhat surprised by a few of the comments that seem so antagonistic.
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Someone mentioned that breastfeeding is what babies need and it’s the best thing for them.  YES.  No one is denying that.  However, the Fall took God’s incredible plan of creation and skewed it.  Things that normally would never have happened now happen all the time.  Do you think God intended that some people be born blind or with missing limbs?  Of course not!  That kind of scenario is a result of the Fall.  The same with breasts.  God intended them to feed our young, giving them the best nutrition possible and solidifying the bond between mother and child.  Of course, He also intended that women never experience postpartum depression, yet many do.  Original sin really threw a monkey wrench into the workings of EVERYTHING, resulting in many factors that can make breastfeeding difficult or ultimately impossible.

Just to throw something else out there, esp. for Sabine:

I have a friend who breastfed each of her first 3 children (the first 2 were twins) although they were allergic to various foods. She was used to eliminating everything from her diet until she figured out what that was. In one case, it was RICE. Unfortunately, this didn’t work for her 4th child. The “ingredients” of her breastmilk were KILLING him. He was allergic to EVERYTHING. So, she had no choice but to use the only one type of super pre-digested forula that had to be flown in from Europe that he could keep down. He was finally able to eat apples at age 2. Things aren’t always so cut and dry when it comes to breast or bottle. Needless to say, as a breastfeeding mom of 5, I no longer judge even a little bit.

Kateri, yes, yes, yes.  Let’s all turn a keen eye to truth. Emotions and hurt feelings at the hands of sanctimonious breastfeeding “Nazis” (I’ve never actually met one but it sounds terrifying)need to be kept straight from biological, scientific and spiritual facts. 
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Charity IS more important than suckling offspring.  This is what separates us from the animals that lactate thoughtlessly.  What I find ODD is the OVERREACTION by some when stating scientific facts about the benefits of breastfeeding.  Why so much HOSTILITY over something that is SO important?  Yes, Simcha, some people DO make immoral decisions when it comes to having their priorities in the wrong order, if they are able to breastfeed, and don’t. 
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To all the women who can’t breastfeed, who get up half dead at night to sterilize bottles—You are HEROES.  To all the women who must support a family by working outside the home, and must bottle feed—Heroes.  To those whose bodies or mental health can’t accomodate breastfeeding but do everything in their power to put their babies first, you are worthy of the highest respect.  God sees everything.  He LOVES you regardless.
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Breastfeeding is hard.  Breastfeeding on demand is even harder. Being needed by another human being, 24-7 is enough to drive any sane woman to her knees.  It challenges a woman to the core.  It played a huge role in my religious conversion.
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For years women were fed with lies about the true benefits of nursing.  Formula was hip, and promised freedom like the contraceptive pill.  Doctors in nice white coats were all but happy to “cram” a woman’s body with contraceptives (Thank you Simcha for that colorful way of putting it in other posts) when natural, breastfeeding infertility didn’t happen. (Yes, it DOES work to space children for the majority, as seen when studying fertility rates in indigenous communities.)
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I for one, was ready to give up on breastfeeding 24 years ago.  My breasts were cracked and bleeding.  I saw blood in my child’s mouth as well as pieces of sloughed nipple!!!  I was overfeeding him in one sitting and he was getting too much air.  I didn’t understand that his need to suckle was not always hunger, and that I SHOULDN’T switch sides like they told me.  He would projectile vomit across the room. (I was at the Ped. office constantly). He had colic.  I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t SLEEP through the night, or why he wanted to eat CONSTANTLY.  I had double pneumonia from exhaustion, from getting up and going to a crib three times a night, which landed me in the hospital.  My nice old Pediatrician insisted that I stop or I would lose TEETH!  I felt like a failure.  IT SUCKED!!!!!!
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I would have given up had I not been given the proper, loving support I needed.
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I found all the information I needed at The La Leche league.  I got through it.  I offered it up.  I got over my embarrassment over nursing in public and at mass. I learned to breastfeed with a sling in the grocery store, which I hated the thought of. It was one of the hardest battles of my life. I needed help from strangers at times. Do I understand why some give up that DON’T have physical problems? Why some don’t want to be TETHERED down?  Why a bottle and a pacifier has PLENTY of appeal? You bet I do.
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I shudder at how close I came to giving up for the wrong reasons.
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Now let’s stop with the name calling. A Catholic blog is no place for rabble rousing. We are Catholic sisters.  Let’s support each other, try to help with each others’ burdens and try to keep our emotions from going on overload.

Only one thing can keep our children from dying.  Jesus.
Only one thing can make our children perfect.  Jesus.

I breastfeed.  It is not my religion. 
I wear my baby.  It is not my religion.
I homeschool.  It is not my religion.
I cloth diaper.  It is not my religion.
I seek out real food.  It is not my religion.

This impulse to make things like breastfeeding a religion is so sad.  When people get so wrapped up in any of these types of things that they treat it like life or death choice, they are really losing sight of our purpose on earth.  None of these choices guarantee health, happiness, success, peace, safety, etc.  Only Jesus does.  When we get too focused on these choices, particularly when we feel compelled to judge, educate or coerce others who disagree, we really need to remember what’s really important.

Theresa and Nella (and many others):  you nailed it!  Since the fall, there are situations in life where there is a need for a “Plan B”.  Adoption, formula feeding, and many other situations fall into this category.  Yes, breastfeeding needs to be promoted.  It is appalling that mothers are harassed for nursing in public.  It is appalling that the formula companies bully third-world mothers into bottle-feeding when they can’t afford the formula and don’t have refrigeration and an adequate water supply.  It is appalling that formula companies use subtle tactics to discourage breastfeeding.  But despite all that, in our fallen world formula does have a place, and it’s not our job to speculate as to why a mother is bottle-feeding.  It is possible to promote breastfeeding without being cruel about it as Sabine and other bullies are.

If I were born a few centuries earlier, I probably would have been a wet nurse.  Nursing was easy for me and my babies got fat and healthy.  I got skinny nursing and would joke that if I wasn’t so lazy to make a bottle in the middle of the night, I’d have to go to weight watchers, but nursing did it for me.
So does that make me more moral than a bottle feeding mother?  Is it moral to nurse your baby so you can get back in your skinny jeans sooner?  Yes, some of us do get skinny while nursing.
I don’t care how a mother feeds her baby, as long as the baby gets fed.  It’s none of my business.

I do think Simcha makes some great points that need to be considered (e.g. lack of access to clean, safe water), but there are “bullies” everywhere.  Take a look at the formula companies, who were in the country where the pictured mother lives pushing their product when I’m sure *they are well aware* that access is to clean water is problematic or non-existent (thus resulting in increased numbers of sick, dying children).  So please, let’s all also be honest about THAT.  The formula companies (who have far more money and resources than individual nursing mothers do) are some of the loudest, misleading and at times, downright deceitful bullies out there.  I have met many mothers, who wrapped up in their passion for something (e.g. breastfeeding, childbirth, schooling choices, lifestyle choices, diet choices) intimidate, hurt and yes, even bully other mothers about their different choices. I am sure I am guilty of this myself as I tend to be passionate and outspoken at times (God and I are working on that!).  It is heart-breaking when this happens as we’re all here to help each other get to heaven and that doesn’t serve anyone!  However, the picture (while extreme and yes, I agree, totally inappropriate in that setting/time) is not necessarily false.  It certainly doesn’t tell the whole truth, but formula *was* a part of the problem.  Babies in the US also die from things that breastmilk *may* have prevented, so it’s not just something that doesn’t affect us in our privileged, 1st-world life.  Yes, we don’t know for certain how all the risk factors, genetic predisposition and life circumstance would have worked out for babies in the US, but it is not inaccurate to say that breastfeeding could have helped (or potentially even saved the life) an ill baby.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/05/breastfeeding.costs/index.html

As for the poster who said breastfeeding increases the risk of jaundice, studies don’t seem to support that.  There is the normal physiologic jaundice that occurs around 2-3 days of life and there are other factors that place some babies at higher risk of developing jaundice (e.g. of Asian descent, male babies), but breastfeeding alone is not one of them. 

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001559.htm

I agree that this is one of those hot-button topics, fueling more in the “mommy wars” but posts like this do a disservice to mothers in general.  I think our anger and frustration are inappropriately aimed at individuals who nurse versus those who formula feed. All that energy should be directed at finding a more cost-effective way to make breastmilk donation banks more the norm rather than formula, IMO.  This shouldn’t be about this bully or that bully (after all, we all may have even been called “pro-life/anti-choice bullies” at one point, even for just sharing factual information….).  It should be about representing the truth in a charitable and sensitive manner. Does that mean individual mothers have the right to demean those who need (or want) to formula feed?  No, but it also doesn’t mean we have to resort to name-calling and finger-pointing.  Lumping any one group as “bullies” in general are not helpful.  Simcha, I really do love your posts and all you are doing!!!  I just think this one, while justified in its response, fails to include the bigger picture.  Hope that doesn’t make me a bully too! ;)

My greatest desire was to breastfeed my 8 week old son, my first after 2 miscarriages and 6 years of infertility. I lost 50 pounds, I went into debt to save my son with the medical treatments I had to have to keep my pregnancy, I had to have a c section to keep him safe and I just want to say God bless you Simca for writing what you have.

My son had a severe tongue tie and we were seperated for 4 days because he had to be in the NICU on account of low blood sugar. I nearly went insane trying to breastfeed even with a lot of support.I would pump and get MAYBE 2 ounces a day. I finally had to stop and move on so I could be a happy mom and enjoy and serve my son and my husband. It is very sad that another woman would judge me for something that was impossible for me to do. My son is healthy and thriving and that;s all that matters.

Please pray that I am able to have another baby. At 41 time is running out. I really would like another chance at breastfeeding :)

Oh, thank you for this!

I realize that people are just trying to be helpful, but of course it is patent nonsense to say that all babies come into this world needing the same thing, breastfeeding.  This a fallen world and there are a great many things that can go wrong with mothers and with babies that can cause breastfeeding failure.  I happily breastfeed my first 5 children, even #5 who spent 10 days in neonatal intensive care after surgery and I had to pump for 3 weeks until she was strong enough to latch on.  She had breast milk in a bottle until then though. I was very thankful she was not my first because it was a NIGHTMARE and I have nothing but sympathy and understanding for those who can’t get their milk to come in or keep it up under those circumstances. And that happens more often than success in neonatal wards.
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But baby #6 not only could not nurse and spent 30 days in intensive care, but breast milk was not nutritious enough for him.  Yes you read right, breast milk did not have enough calories. I had to pump breast milk and then add formula to it to get enough calories for him to gain or even maintain weight.  He would have starved to death otherwise.  So I did that for 6 months and then my milk dried up completely.  I felt like a failure, even though I had successfully nursed all 5 of the other kids. I certainly heard people say that if I just “tried hard enough” he somehow would have magially gained weight on breast milk exclusively. 
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Yeah well, he will be 17 years old next week and he has a Mic-Key feeding tube button because he can’t even get past 80 pounds no matter what he eats by mouth so it wasn’t just me or my breast milk.  He has to supplement with 1500 calories over night through a feeding tube. It works out pretty well for him although he puts tape over it when he goes to soccer practice or games because one time it got pulled out and his coach about had a coronary over it.
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And yes, we have been told about, and tried, every kind of supplement and high calorie diet there is. For him, it has been 17 years of people saying, “I wish I had your problem, I look at food and gain weight.”  Seriously people, no you don’t wish you had his medical problems, it isn’t fun at all.
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But I honestly don’t think that one has to have this level of difficulty before you throw in the towel.  If breastfeeding works for you and baby, Praise God.  And if baby and or you do better with formula, God Bless the formula manufacturers. (And may they, Please God, learn to do better by third world countries.)

Thanks so much for this article. I have experienced the breastfeeding “bullies” when my first was FTT. He was losing weight and I kept being told to ignore the pedi and keep breastfeeding. His diaper count was what it should be. My mommy intuition told me otherwise but these were"experts” with breastfeeding. I was a new 1st time mom. Then my baby became lethargic. Turns out that while I had an abundance of milk the milk didn’t have what he needed since I was severely b12 deficient. So he started on formula while I received injections to get my B12 level up. It took 3 months to do that and my baby was 6months old at the time and wouldn’t have anything to do with breastfeeding and pumping wasn’t getting much of anything. With my second we made it to 6 months where once again we were FTT and it was due again to my B12 levels. I got donor milk when I could but was only able to get a total of 300oz. I don’t know of any local milk banks and the ones I do know of only provide milk to babies in the NICU. I don’t know how many times I cried when I would give my sons a bottle. My husband would try and comfort me but I still felt so bad about it.

@Shannon - The Journal of American Medicine has clearly stated:  ” In conclusion, breast-feeding is one common cause of jaundice in normal newborns in the first week of life and beyond. “

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/255/23/3270.abstract

This whole discussion makes me angry when it takes place amongst the privileged, developed-world, mostly white mothers. 

Nobody owes anyone else a story about why they didn’t breastfeed and nobody should be a bully.  *Not being a bully* is a more obvious and all-encompassing moral imperative than *Breastfeeding except in case of medical necessity*. 

BUT I think the picture here is NOT about bullying women into breastfeeding but to raise consciousness about the lack of access to water and medical care, and the stranglehold of the formula companies in developing nations.

We don’t even talk about the cultural stigmas that *still* remain against breastfeeding, like the lack of info and support in poorer communities—and, individual success stories aside, that *does have a lifelong effect on the health of an entire community. 

Simcha, you mentioned these important aspects but the comments are full of women amen-ing as if it is only about giving the finger to those horrible breastfeeding shamers.  (Which again, I support.  Giving the finger to any and all bullies is one of my favorite pastimes, actually)

Ultimately, nobody should feel the need to justify their formula feeding.  Even more, people ought to mind their business.  If you see a woman formula feeding, let it be a reminder to you that you have to do something to help support those who need it to breastfeed. 

Mostly, I wish the focus was on the many social and economic factors that keep women in this country and around the world from breastfeeding.  Which is not about personal stories.  It’s about us being more aware and doing something other than being bullies.

I totally agree, my mum had to breast and bottle feed me as she wasn’t making enough milk and I was losing weight. I don’t hold it against her, I would have starved without it.
Some women can’t, some choose not to. It’s their choice and they shouldn’t be ostracized for it.

I looked at this poster in a different way from you.  The mother who allowed the photo to be used wanted it used if it would help—-not if it would hurt anyone.  She formula fed her baby in unsafe conditions because she was misinformed and made a bad “choice” based in this information.  The picture challeges us to think about our feeding decisions and especially, their well-intentioned but possibly dangerous side effects.  I formula fed my first child, believing I had made an informed choice too yet it turned out to be a bad choice which subsequently severely damaged his health. I too, wish I could have done things differently.  This mother had milk and possibly could have fed both babies—-perhaps she could not have but the chance was taken away from her by misinformation.  Some mothers can’t breastfeed—- that is true—-but it is terrible to look back with regret and wish you had done things differently.

@ Sabine - You just illustrated Simcha’s point.  To call women like my wife “selfish” after being hospitalized twice during her pregnancy for a total of six weeks of bed rest, and fighting all that time to keep herself and our baby alive, and then after the birth, suffering the agony of not being able to produce enough breast milk to keep the baby fed…to call her and others like her “selfish” for using formula when that was all she could do, well..you’re a feckless thug and you don’t know anything about the struggles some people go through.

@Pat - I do wish I had full information back when I delivered my first child.  All the information I had was breastfeeding was best.  I would’ve been a bad, selfish mother to give my child formula.  It pains me to remember how poorly I bonded with my first child, how much I resented her as the life was literally being sucked out of me.  I was so weak after a torturous 32 week pregnancy and a delivery where I hemmorrhaged and came within inches of losing my life.    Had I been given permission by even one female family member or one medical person to bottle feed my baby, I think I’d have done it.    I only found out with later babies that the Coombs positive jaundice my premie baby was suffering was actually worsened by all that breastmilk.  You see, after phototherapy, but before blood transfusions, they do treat that jaundice with formula in the place of breastmilk.    The treatment only lasts for a few days, but I was so brainwashed into thinking that my child would be a sickly, allergy ridden moron that I didn’t even entertain the thought of formula.  I don’t know if formula for that condition was known to be helpful in 1996, but I certainly didn’t know that someone who’d hemmorhaged during delivery would be better off bottle feeding and neither did anyone else around me.

Eh, my long comment is stalled for looking like spam ...or it didn’t go through…but I just wanted to add that another reason women don’t end up breastfeeding in *this* country is because of the horrible mistreatment they received from so-called medical personnel who don’t know crap about breastfeeding, have un-scientific views on the subject, are misogynists, and/or have already sabotaged the mother’s ability to do it with their crappy, non-evidence-based practices and interventions.

My first comment was about how the poster Simcha saw is NOT about shaming women for not breastfeeding but is to raise awareness about how conditions in other countries make formula feeding actually *dangerous*.  And I also said that bullying is far worse than almost anything else, but being blind to your own privilege and seeing this whole post as being about your story of breastfeeding (or not) is a kind of ignorance that might rival bullying if it remains willful ignorance.

Crap, now I am on *my* high horse.  See how easy that is?  Crap.

@Corita, I’m not sure to whom your second paragraph is directed.  The whole point of my post WAS about the personal stories of privileged women in America, and how distinct they are from the personal stories of poor women in third world countries. 

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I understand that the woman in the poster wanted her story told to prevent other third-world women from suffering what she did; but her photo was being misused by my midwife.  Every single thing on the wall of that room was there for American patients to see, to help them make decisions about their own medical care.  Why would it be appropriate for a midwife to suddenly start trying to raise awareness about conditions in other countries?  That’s not what she was doing; she was trying to frighten mothers into thinking that formula kills.  This was very clear from the placement and context (and lack of explanation) of the photo.

I tried to BF my 1st child and was unable to get it to work.  It took me hours to even get a single ounce.  Finally I gave up and just put her on formula.  When my son came along I vowed that I would try harder to BF and lo and behold we made it work.  I was so proud of myself until 6 weeks later he still hadn’t made it back to his birth weight; he was 9.79 lbs at birth and was still under 8lbs after 6 weeks.  Dr told me I just didn’t have enough fat in my breast milk for him to gain weight and she suggested that I supplement him with formula to get his weight up.  It worked beautifully and for convenience I ended up bottle feeding when out and about and breast when I was at a home.  I understand what is being said about drs going off of formula fed babies to gauge weight gain, but for someone like me that just does not apply.  That being said I do not believe that breast is always best.  You have to do what fits for you and your family and not listen to anyone else.  Formula fed babies can be just as healthy as breast fed babies just as breast babies can get sick just as often as formula babies.  It seems like some people forget that our genes also play a role in our health.

@Corita again:  I released your first comment from comment limbo.  You seem to be insisting that any and all conversation that might include issues faced by third world women, MUST FOCUS on third world women.  Frankly, that’s just a different kind of elitism from the kind that seems to offend you. 

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It’s okay for privileged white women to talk about their problems.  It really is. White women suffer genuine pain, despite being white, and should be allowed to talk about their experiences without having fingers wagged at them because someone somewhere is suffering even more. 

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Pardon me if I’m misunderstanding you, but your comment falls into the category of comments that I will never understand:  those that criticize the writer (or readers) for not addressing every possible aspect of an issue.  If I wrote about the shade that trees provide, someone would say, “HOW CAN YOU NEGLECT THE VITAL ISSUE OF PAPER PRODUCTION?” and then an entymologist would scoff at my cowardly neglect of the issue of insect habitats.

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@Shannon:  I find it very hard to believe that “posts like this do a disservice to mothers in general” when so many mothers who HAVE heard all the information about breastfeeding are thanking me for saying something that no one wants to say:  sometimes, it just doesn’t work, and it doesn’t mean you’re a bad mother.  One post encouraging people to be more tolerant of differences does not somehow detract from the pro-breastfeeding campaign.  This is what I consider zealotry:  when one is so convinced of the righteousness of the cause that you’re unwilling to allow anyone to say that the issue is even complex.  I’m astonished that you can so easily gloss over the pain of women who’ve suffered, just because they happen to be in the minority.

I feel very lucky, reading all these stories.  I guess I just don’t hang out with that kind of judgy person.  Here’s how things tend to sound among my friends:
Friend 1. How is X doing with her new baby?
Friend 2.  Oh, fine, except that she isn’t going to be able to breastfeed.
Friend 1.  Oh, the poor thing!  I would be heartbroken if I couldn’t breastfeed!
Friend 2.  I had to make bottles when I was babysitting, and it such a hassle.  I just don’t know how I could manage that while adjusting to a newborn, too.
Friend 3.  Does she need help?
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Why is this not the norm?  Does it matter WHY X couldn’t breastfeed?  Among my friends, there have been reasons like hospitalization (hard to keep breastfeeding when you’re in the hospital for a week with MS or post-partum psychosis) or struggling with the NICU or incompatible but necessary medications.  I certainly don’t want to ask if it’s something personal.  If anyone wants help, I’m there.  I had a lot of struggles, which I did manage to push through, but I can easily see how many women throw in the towel.  It might have made sense for me to have done so, though I’m glad I didn’t because things did end up working out.
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To those who say, “Well, most moms still don’t breastfeed, and from science we know that the vast majority of moms are able to,”—well, there’s a big difference between “physically able” and “actually able.”  Could this or that mom have breastfed her babies if she’d had decent support, if someone had recognized that tongue-tie, if a doctor had known of a breastfeeding-friendly medication, if she hadn’t been told this or that stupid myth that sabotaged her, if she could have had a longer maternity leave?  Maybe.  Would I tell her that later?  Probably not.  If it’s too late to save her breastfeeding relationship, there is no reason to make her feel bad about it.  Chances are, she already feels bad because she actually wanted to breastfeed.  So give her a hug already and tell her that her baby seems to be doing fine anyway!

@Shannon:  I reread your comment, and I think I’ve mischaracterized your tone, if not your intention.  I’m sorry about that; but I still cannot agree that my post in any way does a disservice to women, whether in general or in particular.  Offering comfort and support to people in pain is not a disservice, and doing so doesn’t somehow take away from energy that would otherwise be directed toward goals that you think are more laudable.  It’s not as if there’s some bank of emotional energy, and women can choose either to expend it on being sad about their babies, or on organizing a petition against Nestle.

I agree that the photo was inappropriate, and that the story behind it had nothing to do with formula itself being harmful. However, I do question the morality of formula companies. I heard a story about Carnation in the 1940’s causing many deaths in third world countries by carting in formula samples, getting moms to feed it to their babies until their milk dried up, and then not being able to buy more. I know this happened a long time ago, but it makes me think twice about buying Carnation products. I also hate the fact that WIC partners with formula companies to provide free formula to women, thus preventing them from any attempt to breastfeed. If they spent half as much money and energy promoting breastfeeding, there would be healthier babies.

Yes, formula companies have blood on their hands.  There is no doubt about that.  They have pushed formula into the hands of ignorant women who cannot afford it, knowing that the women would run out of money quickly and the babies would die. 

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My experience with WIC has been totally the opposite of what you describe, though—I suppose it must vary by region.  The WIC folks in my area got me a hospital-grade pump for free when I had thyroid surgery, so that I could continue breastfeeding my 6-month-old son after I recovered.  They gently and persuasively (and pervasively) encourage breastfeeding as the best option for mom and baby at every turn, and will provide free peer counselors and every kind of support for women who show even the slightest interest in breastfeeding. I think it would be immoral for them to refuse to give formula to women who want or need it for their babies!

I also meant to add that my mom was given evaporated milk and Karo syrup as a baby (because that’s just what you did in those days) and besides an few cavities, she turned out just fine!  At least, that’s what she tells us.  ;)  What amazes me about my mother though is that she managed to BF three babies with very little support (she found the LLL league a little too, um, let’s say enthusiastic about BF for her taste).  But BF was also easy for her and she constantly had an abundance of milk.  Sadly, I don’t have quite the same milk production levels as her.  Everyone is different!  And for goodness sake, with the hassle you have to go through with making bottles and warming them up, do you really think women chose bottle over breast because of convenience?  That doesn’t sound convenient to me!  Give other moms the benefit of the doubt and stop making them feel bad for doing what they feel is best for their family.  The poster is clearly about conditions in third world countries and should be left as that.  It should not be used without knowing it’s context.  And I would think most pregnant women in a fragile emotional state wouldn’t think to ask about the context before they freak out about possibly killing their baby with formula.  There is a time and a place for everything, and a midwife’s office is not the place for that.

KK, way upthread - this is for you:  I didn’t really try very hard, but my body doesn’t make milk well, a “pro” didn’t let me off the hook I was able to discern that for myself. That’s the problem I have with the passive aggressive judgement - “I don’t mean to judge, but I’m going to anyway”.  Breastfeeding isn’t a moral imperative, anymore than my inability to make a souffle is.  Show me the Western retro-agrarians who grow all their own organic food, experiencing the occasional cyclical famine, who have never known a McNugget in a crunch, and then preach to me.  We have the luxury of food choices in the West - my children need not suffer for my inability, and I’m grateful to God for that. I pray for the families who do not know that comfort.

Simcha, I’m no fan of corporate formula tactics, but the ability to purify most water has been within the grasp of the UN for three decades, as have meaningful means of food distribution.  It is their own internal politics that have proven detrimental to the worlds hungry. I would be careful to assign blame to formula companies, they are not the ones who deserve our primary castigation.  Many, many babies, both in contemporary and ancestral cultures, would have died without the blessing of alternative feeding options.

I wanted to comment on I believe it was Rachel’s comments about her negative experience with CCL regarding this issue. I am an NFP teacher of another method, but I wanted to support CCL in saying that this element HAS been eliminated from their curriculum.

Nothing gets me steamed more than someone trying to push breastfeeding as a moral issue, and I thank Simcha for saying this flat out. Some in Catholic circles still equate this as a moral issue, and it simply IS NOT. There is NOTHING that anyone can quote either in the bible, Catechism or Church documents that would even imply this is a moral issue.

Lauren (breastfeeding mother of 3)

Okay so here’s something ironic.  Do you all remember the days when you had to “hide” in order to breastfeed in public?  Well, soon after the birth of my (bottlefed) 7th son we had a chuch event to go too and I specifically sat in our car for the entire event because the baby needed to be fed.  I knew I would be attacked if anyone saw me bottlefeeding.  Now THATs a turn of events for you!!
Also, I find that there are many folks who are VERY concerned with babies being breastfed but then hand their babies at 3 months old to perfect strangers to be taken care of until they can be taken care of by the school system. Hmmm….

@saintvelvet:  you said “but the ability to purify most water has been within the grasp of the UN for three decades, as have meaningful means of food distribution.  It is their own internal politics that have proven detrimental to the worlds hungry.”

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That was pretty much exactly the point I made in a previous post, “Dying Women Don’t Need Contraception”

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http://www.ncregister.com/blog/dying-women-dont-need-contraception/

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and boy did I get smacked around for my pie in the sky idealism, suggesting that global aid organizations should be doing more to improve basic sanitary conditions!

At nick, yes, there really IS such a thing as a baby not gaining enough weight.  It is detrimental to baby, mommy, etc.

At everyone, I have a physical problem which prevents me from being capable of solely providing nutrition to a newborn.  I learned this the hard way through many tears, a lot of research and a newborn who gained one pound in four months.  I am actually disappointed that all I was told was “Everyone can breastfeed.”  I had previous physical manifestations of my problem from early teenage years and into pregnancy.  No pediatrician, midwife, OB, etc., ever even mentioned it as a possibility when I described my symptoms.  I feel disappointed.

I also feel disappointed when I get nasty looks when I bottlefeed my baby in public.  I have nursed in public .  I get worse stares and comments when I bottlefeed.  My anatomical issues are none of anyone’s business, yet I feel like I have to explain myself. 

I am grateful that I do live in an age and place where I have access to good water and good formula.  I formula feed, bought a goat and give baby whatever drops my body produces.

Blessed Zellie Martin had to send St. Therese to a wet nurse for her first year.  They are both saints.  No, it’s not a moral issue. 

My own feeling is that in this post-Eden world, most women have difficulties with some part of the process of child bearing.  Some have difficulties conceiving.  Some miscarry easily.  Some are extremely sick when pregnant.  Some have premature babies.  Some have horrible labors.  Some need caesarians.  Some have extremely difficult times recovering.  Some have difficulties or can’t breastfeed.  My difficulty left over from original sin is nursing. 

At Simcha, thank you for writing this article and giving some official credence to what moms like me feel.  Yes, there are breastfeeding bullies and a lot of them.

Thankyou. 
I can’t tell you the amount of women I have spoken to through our community group for Bottle Feeding parents how devastating this sort of thing can be for them.
Breast is best when it is, bottle is best when it is.  Displays of bullying like this help no one and only hurt the cause they are trying to support. Breastfeeding can be beautiful and wonderful,  there just is no need to do this.
Again, from one mother to another - thankyou.
Lisa
Bottle Babies
https://www.facebook.com/bottlebabies

I agree that this picture is horrible and has no place in an obs office, thank go I had an amazing ob that didn’t even ask my feeding plans as its my business! In Canada all formula company’s promote that breast is best but formula is second , I was unable to breast feed, and have never felt an ounce of guilt about it,he’s measured in the 96 th percentile at every check up and at 6 months is 20.8lbs and 27inches long and is by far the happiest baby that ever existed! as for the people that say you bond better ect ect, my son and I have an amazing intense bond, that guess what? He also has with his daddy!!!! I will never regrets bottle feeding him, at the end of the day, I’m feeding him, that’s what counts

I have 3 healthy bottle fed children, I tried to breastfeed and couldnt. I tried with all 3 and no-one could tell me why. I felt upset but got over it because it wasn’t like i was starving my children i just did have the pleasure of breastfeeding!! We already go through so much stress and anxiety after having a baby and people just like to put more stress on us by making us feel like we just aren’t good enough parents!!!

As a mom who has inadequate mammary tissue for breastfeeding, who literally could not feed her own baby and who’s baby was in the hospital at 3 days old because of that fact, I thank you for being more sensitive than many others.  I look at that picture and I think “Hmm… was that little girl ignored when she cried in hunger like so many little girls in India until they whither and die, and in a moment of heart the mom took her to the hospital to die?  Was that little girl fed diluted formula?  You can tell me the water is contaminated, so why wasn’t the water boiled?  Was she not worth the trouble by the mom’s estimates?”  To me, it’s a picture of how the gender-preference in India kills so many little girls.  Nothing to do with the formula, because had they followed the directions the formula would have fed her fine.  As far as ‘evil formula company trying to make money’ all I can say is making money is not the root of all evil, and it’s not wrong for a company to make profits (especially when a significant portion of those profits are spent trying to improve the product to save more lives.)  Before formula, 1 out of 5 babies died from home-made formulas.  That’s a lot of babies saved.  And there is no evidence this woman would have ever tried to feed the disposable little girl.  She would have fed her son and if she felt like it then she would have given the girl a shot, because to let a girl die in India is “no big sin.”

The notion that breast is best is overly simplistic. After failing miserably at breastfeeding my first two babies (twins), I was determined to be a GOOD mother and breastfeed my third child. She was breastfed until 13 months old, and never had a drop of formula or even expressed breastmilk. I really patted myself on the back for what a great thing I was doing for my baby. Until she developed asthma as an infant, allergies to everything under the sun, and turned out to be our little germ sponge who gets sick more than anyone in our family. Of the older two, one has an amazing immune system, no allergies, no asthma; the other twin has mild allergies to pets and pollen and is rarely sick. No one ever told me that my breastmilk could be nutrient deficient; in fact, I was led to believe breastmilk was some sort of magic liquid that is formed perfectly and uniformly in every mother, and that my own health had nothing to do with the contents of my breastmilk. Fortunately, I went with my mommy instincts and decided not to breastfeed my next two children. (Breastfeeding at that point would have been the selfish choice, done only because I hate to disappoint people.) They have been my healthiest children, allergy and asthma-free, have none of the eczema and other skin problems my other children have, are my best sleepers, and were rarely fed or cared for by anyone other than me. All of this is anecdotal, of course, but I wish I had known that my poor health from huge pregnancies, lack of nutrition, exhaustion, and depression could severely affect the quality of my breastmilk. That kind of information is not something you’ll find on Kellymom or LLL. And how sad, because my daughter still suffers the consequences of my body’s failure, when that could have been easily rectified had I known early enough. But that wouldn’t have been politically correct in Mommy World.

This is heartbreaking!  Why wouldn’t the mother nurse both of them, or at least take turns between the mother’s milk and formula?  If I was in that situation, I think that I would take turns every-other-day.  So sad to let your sweet daughter die!!!

If we are to respect life, we must respect life in all its forms—including babies that cannot breastfeed and mothers who cannot/should not/do not breastfeed.  No, Kateri, not all babies are born to be breastfed; preemies, those with severe allergies, those with issues with their facial structure, those born with heart defects, just to name a few reasons—these babies may not be good candidates for being breastfed.  We are called to respect people who deal with with any number of differences or hardships, such as autoimmune disease, prior history of sexual abuse/assault, pituitary gland issues, PCOS, IGT, a death in the family, having a special needs child, or the many other reasons a woman may not be a good candidate for breastfeeding.  Incidentally, the commonly quoted statistics putting it at between 2-5% of mothers who cannot breastfeed have never come from any peer-reviewed study, a curious oversight on the part of breastfeeding bullies who justify their sanctimoniousness by claiming to be “evidence-based” or “scientifically backed.”

Stating that breastfeeding is the biological norm is about as helpful as stating that sight is biological norm.  For those who can see, it doesn’t help them to see better.  For those who cannot, it justifies discrimination against them.  Discrimination that Jesus repeatedly and pointedly took a stand against.  His treatment of people with disabilities, physical differences, or just plain hardship was beyond revolutionary.  The religious leaders of his time used legalistic trickery to justify having Him betrayed and murdered.  Those who claim breastfeeding is “biological norm” and warp it into a moral obligation remind me of the legalistic folks described in the Gospels who wanted the glory of being correct more than they wanted to actually do what was right for people.

@Eileen…I’m sorry that you felt forced into breastfeeding your baby.  The difference between you and me is that you can switch to formula anytime.  You cannot switch back to breastfeeding as easily if you find that you have made the wrong choice.  In my case I didn’t know that my baby would be permanently damaged until it was too late, just like the mother in the picture. Once she found out that she’d been duped, her baby was dying.

I love you for writing this.

Ha!  You probably wear pants too, you Jezebel! :)

So true! Breastfeeding is best , but while working as a nurse on a maternity floor,  i witnessed all too often , the grief and sense of failure that women felt when breastfeeding didnt come so natural to either them or their baby. There are lots of reasons that breastfeeding gets sabotaged. Sometimes the morphine that the mom took for labour pain, is still circulating and the babies were too sleepy.(yes it does transfer to the baby).  Babies finally born from c-section after a long labour ( failure to progress) were exhausted and so were the mothers. I always found it the worst set up for breast feeding success. Inexperience on the moms part was a factor, because it seemed that once a mom successfully breast fed , she was well able to handle even the sleepiest of babies.  Babies sometimes just had a poor suck and needed to learn how to suck ,amazing but true. And if women had breast reconstruction surgery, often the milk ducts were never reconnected, so it would be an exercise in futility for both. Luckily there are lots of solutions , to just about every breast feeding problem, but often moms were under so much stress, and a time line.  Unfortunately some nurses contributed to the sabotage as well, impatient,  unsympathetic, judgmental, too busy.  I remember always being amazed when it all went perfectly, especially for first time moms. it was more the exception than the rule. But the point being, i always supported the moms decision once she had the facts, and had decided to bottle feed. I didn’t want to add guilt to the crazy mix of emotions . Some moms would pick bottlefeeding from admission, i figure they had 9 months to think about it, and after establishing why they wanted to bottlefeed( for charting purpose) it was always okay by me.Even in the olden days before bottles, we had wet nurses, because not all women could breast feed or wanted to breastfeed. so today ,we just use bottles which I guess are just a version of artificial wet nurses.

Note to other readers, I’m pulling my friend Simcha’s leg.

Kat, WIC is very active in breastfeeding promotion throughout the nation. Breastfeeding mothers get more food than bottlefeeding mothers, and the amount of formula given has been decreased. They are trying to sort it out, while remaining faithful to their mission of making sure children are well fed. If a mother won’t breastfeed, that child needs formula to be healthy and grow well.

I actually see the benefits of breastfeeding exaggerated regularly, and benefits that are now considered not a causal link, like higher IQ scores, continue to be stated. A lot of the links are not clear, for instance there is some evidence that breastfeeding increases risk of allergy and asthma in some individuals while it decreases it in others. Again, the causal relationship between breastfeeding and postpartum depression isn’t clear either, and the evidence is that it does not significantly help moms, on a population level, with weight loss. I like this meta-analysis for talking through some of the points about the benefits for mothers and babies: http://www.ahrq.gov/downloads/pub/evidence/pdf/brfout/brfout.pdf

Manipulating people into your agenda, regardless of how righteous that agenda is is always condescending, offensive and just plain irritating.

I used to be a breastfeeding bully… until I had my first baby!! Now I am in complete admiration of breastfeeding moms especially ones that work full-time!  I’m a pediatrician.. and where I trained, we were made to feel that bottle-feeding was nearly a mortal sin!  Breast is still best though, but formula is okay too! :)  I just wonder about some mamas who insist on doing both…but the baby is super fat… and then the breastmilk dries up….( i think in some cases its cultural to do both to get more chunky bebes).  I still encourage our new mamas to try to nurse though, if they are open to it.  As for OBs inquiring, I think its good for them to know, and is best practice - to know what meds to put you on postpartum.. if you need a lactation consultant ordered while inpatient… to counsel on NFP/ecological breastfeeding….  anyways, love your blog, Simcha!!!, esp all the experienced parenting entries!

When my twins were born I tried breastfeeding, without much success.  I took home the pump, & found it impossible to take care of all of my newborn twins’ needs with only 20 minutes of every hour NOT devoted to feeding or pumping double amounts for twins.  What about all that laundry, diaper changing, bathing, etc, etc?  I was vehemently told not to switch back and forth to formula feeding.  So I gave up on breastfeeding.  I was much chagrined years later when my sister with a singleton, successfully alternated formula/breast and eventually exclusively breastfed. I believe my “Breastfeeding Nazi” hospital doctor robbed me of the opportunity to breastfeed my twins with the inflexible approach to nourishing my babies.  Years later I still get asked if I breastfed, and receive disappointed looks when I say NO.  Breastfeedng Nazis still judge on into the future.  We formula-feeders will never measure up in their eyes, no matter how wonderful our children turn out. I guess our children would be even better if they had been breastfed.

What I fear in a thread like this, is that formula feeding will be put on par with natural mother’s milk in the minds of some.  Even my own comment reflects some breastfeeding hell.  For anyone sitting on the fence, or reading this with cracked nipples, two wet “headlights” and milk running down her leg, DON’T “throw in the towel”!!  Like anything else good in life, breastfeeding has a learning curve!  After “beginners angst” I eventually found peace and bliss in this sublime gift from God, and went on to ecologically nurse eight beautiful children for an average of two-and-a-half years each. @yes, Jennifer I get “skinny” from nursing too, but only in the second year.  Even with the eighth I was sore and had to do some Lamaze breathing when she latched on, so a little pain is just something we learn is inevitable.  My ninth child, Ambrose, died in my womb in the 36th week, on my son Xavier’s fifth birthday, about three months ago.  When I had to deliver him by induction the following week end, they put me in the furthest labor and delivery room so I wouldn’t have to hear the sounds of babies being born. I could hear them anyways.  The joy of hearing their cries made me HAPPIER.  I appreciated one of the comments above that reflected on all the painful realities we must deal with POST “garden”.  Yes, this sometimes means painful inquiries, and being forced to deal with a profound sense of inadequacy, but I find great comfort in showing Jesus the wound, and asking him for souls in virtue of it.  Was it a coincidence that a Eucharistic minister came and gave me Holy Communion when I was at “10” and ready to push? Our pain, our labors, and our confusing “outcomes” will look different beyond the veil, and be cause for celebration some day.

I don’t mean to alarm you Simcha, given your condition.  My baby had a fatal neural tube defect, and was not destined for this world.  He died the day after I found out via ultrasound, and after we were given an anointing of the sick.  Blessings, and prayers for a good delivery.

My mother-in-law raised 5 infants during the 50’s on formula made from PET condensed milk and Karo syrup, a common formula at the time. They all survived in good health. Kids are more resilient than we think. Most will do fine on modern formula which is far superior to the stuff my MIL used.

Anna Lisa,  I am very sorry for the loss of your son Ambrose.  What a beautiful attitude you had at his delivery.  May our Lord carry you in your grief.

@Simcha, I wasn’t directing my “privilege” rant at you or anyone in particular.  I was too cranky to comment effectively; probably I will always be on this topic.

I get what you say about criticizing for not addressing every possible aspect of a topic.  I guess the fact that breastfeeding *is* so influenced by so many things—all of which make me cranky—then that is what you are hearing from me.  Medical stupidity, misogyny, Cultural biases, historic poverty, formula-mongers and know-it-all bullies ALL make me angry.  Reading women post their justifications for bottle-feeding makes me angry because they shouldn’t feel they have to: It’s nobody’s damn business. 

I guess reason I felt the need to focus on the developing-world story of that poster was because I thought your commenters were leaving it out because their minds were on their gratitude for not being judged for bottle-feeding, for once. 

So all of my contradictory feelings went into my inarticulate posts.  I am sure I have made it clear as mud by commenting a third time.  Know I wasn’t criticizing you, just being grumpy in general about the nexus of Consequences of the Fall that is The State of Breastfeeding in the World Today.

I have no problem with women that need to use formula.  What I have a huge problem with is the way they market it in the hospital.  I just gave birth last week to number four and we were sent home with the typical formula gift bag and on the outside of the package it actually stated—A Gift for the Breastfeeding Mother…inside was a can of formula.  I think this is wrong, everyone knows where to get formula if you need it.  The formula companies are desperately trying to get exclusively breastfeeding moms to supplement.

  Also, Maybe I lack spiritual maturity here and I need to grow in understanding, but I’ve always felt breastfeeding is a moral issue.  If a woman is able to breastfeed and chooses not to for selfish reasons this is a problem.  They are withholding something necessary that belongs to the child in favor of other priorities. Granted women are not usually completely culpable for this negligence because of the many pressures, lack of support, formula marketing etc.  I don’t see how this is just another amoral choice in child rearing though, like choosing cloth or disposable diapers or something.

Backatcha, saintvelvet:  I am very fotunate to have super, professional, family support with breastfeeding…my body, too, doesn’t make milk well and I had an especially difficult time for the first few months with my last.  I feel very blessed to have this guidance in order to help me to persevere.  I agree that there are situations that women can’t breastfeed but they are rare.  We can’t pretend that formula is on par with breastmilk.  In fact, the differences are so great, formula cannot be compared to breastmilk.  This is not a guilt trip.  This is truth.
As my original comments state: I disagree with the picture as a way to promote breastfeeding.  And I DO think that the choice to breastfeed or bottlefeed can be a moral issue…
As far as the dirtiness of formula companies, their evil participation in making profit at the risk of third world lives is well known…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé_boycott

See, this is why I generally stay away from things like this b/c it’s online and things are easily misinterpreted. ;)
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@Eileen—your post from JAMA is exactly what I was referring to…the *normal* physiologic jaundice that most newborns experience and I am guessing for every study there is (without evaluation to methodology, flaws, etc.) that shows a higher incidence of jaundice w/ breastfeeding, there is another showing that it is not breastfeeding itself but an interplay of factors (e.g. fasting, feeding frequency, childbirth interventions, etc.)  I am not here to debate that, was just pointing out that saying breastfeeding *alone* causes jaundice is inaccurate.
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@Simcha—yes, I think you did mis-interpret my tone previously, but to be fair, I probably mis-worded what I meant to write.  I fully understand how and why not every woman can breastfeed.  For me, this isn’t about applauding one group while lowering the other.  I am ITA that the issue is complex and I am sorry if my post appeared as glossing over other’s pain…I assure you, that was not my intent at all.  My comment about it being a disservice was more so in re: to the use of the word “bully”.  I am not saying it was inappropriate for the situation you experienced.  I agree, that was bullying expectant mothers to breastfeed (out of fear).  And perhaps using the word “disservice” isn’t fully captivating what I wanted to portray but I’m pregnant too and appropriate word usage escapes me at times…so please forgive me.  I didn’t mean disservice as in it was causing harm to mothers, I meant it from a place of impairing the relationship between mothers b/c some (who justifiably so) may overreact and say, “See?  All those crazy nursing zealot mothers are bullies!” But that’s not even as clear as I’d like to be…
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I guess it’s more so the issue of breastfeeding moms v. formula feeding moms that gets me…I don’t like the divisions.  I have strong opinions and preferences as a mom, but you know what?  I also have one heck of a temper that other mothers would look upon w/ horror!  The bottom line is we’re here to help one another grow closer to Christ, so hopefully, we can all spend eternity with Him together.  I just didn’t think the finger-pointing (which I may have mis-interpreted towards nursing mothers/supporters as a whole) was beneficial, that is all.  I am going to stop rambling now and refrain from writing something publicly that my hormonal self is not so apt to do well right now. ;)

@Oregon Catholic…um…

@Sabine: those ingredients are NOT poison, unless you consider VITAMINS to be poison.

Pardon the intrusion of a male voice - This is the sort of pressure my future wife will have to face over… breastfeeding!? I’m stunned. Why on earth does this simple question deserve so much agony? If the mother can do it, great. If she can’t, the baby will do just fine on the bottle. Think of all the many variables that influence a child’s welfare. There is no way breastfeeding is a significant, life-defining factor. If a child does poorly as an adult, what reasonable person says, “Ah! It’s clear now. She or he wasn’t breastfed.” Children do need to experience secure, trustworthy, supportive, empathic, and nurturing relationships with their parents, and breastfeeding is a beautiful way to provide (a small part of) that experience. But it’s not the only way. Toward this end a mother’s (or a father’s) capacity to form good relationships with others is far more important. You can breastfeed and get so much else wrong that the child becomes dysfunctional. You can also bottle-feed and get so much else right that the child thrives and succeeds.
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Should God bless me one day with children, whether my wife chooses to breastfeed or bottle-feed will truly be among the very least of my concerns for those children. I will want her to breastfeed if she can, but if for whatever reason she can’t, I will be far more concerned that she not beat herself up about it than that our children are suffering some tragic loss (because it’s less than ideal rather than tragic). In fact, I would rather comfort my wife in her sadness that she is unable to nurse than face one who takes breastfeeding far too seriously, and who tries to make other women accept her view (so that they now feel guilty or inadequate - please - it makes me sick to think of perfectly good mothers having to endure this). On the other hand, things that will keep me up at night: Do my wife and I routinely provide our children that loving connection mentioned earlier? Are we helping them to discover the out-of-this-world possibility of enjoying their very own loving, blessed relationship with God Himself? Are we helping them understand what it means that God is the meaning of their lives? Are we helping them make sense of their childhood experiences, and teaching them about the moral life, so that they grow into mature adults of strong character? Are they getting along with their friends? How is my relationship with my wife? (That would be my first question actually.) Are she and I surrounded by a good community? Things like these. Again, the nursing question is just one of so many other much more important concerns.
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I really wish women wouldn’t beat themselves up about this, much less torment others whose lives no finite creature can fully comprehend. A mother should simply do the best she can and rest in the fact that ultimately it is only God, and not her or her husband, who answers to her child’s deepest and most decisive needs.
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Love and blessings to all, and God bless you this Advent and Christmas season.

@ Shannon, with you sister!  You have nothing to apologize for…With ALL my sisters here too…How lucky we are to be mothers, acting with God, for good.

Nazis brutally invaded several countries and murdered six million people.  Can we please stop equating bullying over breastfeeding with genocide?  It’s incredibly offensive.

The Nazis murdered far more than 6 million people; that figure represents the number of Jews who were murdered.  Offensive or not though, the term Nazi has entered popular language as a way of describing any group (or sometimes individuals) who will bully people into following their way.  Of course some people use the term fascist, but that really historically is only slightly better (or not, depending on whether you consider the Nazis to be part of the fascist movement). 
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And one thing to keep in mind is that trying to force people to avoid using certain language almost never keeps them from being offensive; they almost always will find new, equally offensive ways to express themselves.  Hence the fallacy of political correctness.

If 5% of women cannot breastfeed, and that often-quoted figure doesn’t have firm empirical support, that is 1 in 20 women. That is not rare. And that would be the women unable to make enough milk, not those for whom medications preclude nursing, or who *could* make enough milk only with an heroic effort that would negatively effect the quality of their mothering.

Breastfeeding doesn’t happen in a vaccuum. Having a loving, healthy, sane, responsive mother is shown to make a large impact on a child’s outcome, certainly as large as breastfeeding itself, and if breastfeeding is so stressful that it negatively impacts a woman’s mental health she is not being selfish by formula feeding; she is recognizing that feeding isn’t the only important thing in mothering. You can’t judge the quality of a mother’s mothing by whether or not she nurses. A mother needs to judge the good for the entire family, and not exaggerate the benefits of breastfeeding and focus on that as *the most important* act of mothing.

Making sure that your child is adequately fed and cared for in the way best for your entire family is a moral issue. Breastfeeding itself is not.

@Becky, Yes, morality does come into play with our choices, and how this *affects* our mothering.  I live in an area where there are lots of nannies.  I don’t even want to GO IN to all the situations I have seen where I witnessed kids being neglected, and in even one instance, a child who was almost run over because the nanny was fully absorbed in a cell phone conversation.  That’s just the tip of the iceberg.  And yes, that mother would have been horrified.  We live in a fallen world where people put THINGS or a perceived NEED before people.  Lots of mothers *choose* to go back to work so they can drive that car, live in that house and take those vacations.  Some women aren’t interested in self sacrifice. I’ve seen them, I’ve KNOWN them.  I was at a cocktail party two weeks ago where a pretty, stylish, working, first-time mother, who had just fired her nanny expressed to me, not only a hatred of motherhood, but actually asked me if I “started to hate my husband” when I became a mother too.  I laughed, but she was dead serious.
KNOWING that we are not talking about unfortunate biological exceptions to the rule, let’s just take this to the lowest common denominator:  Oxytocin is real.  It is that chemical that probably SAVES more infant lives than I’d care to believe.  I WISH humans were better.
*YES, morality DOES play a role in whether some women CHOOSE to breastfeed.  Can we be realists?  EVERYONE should be talking up breastfeeding.  READ the stats on breastfeeding as it pertains to childhood obesity, early onset diabetes,bacterial and viral illness, early onset of puberty…the list goes on and on and it shouldn’t have to hurt the feelings of those heroic mothers who CAN’T breastfeed for whatever reason, that these truths be trumpeted far and wide. Should a paraplegic resent that the benefits of *running* are touted?  Maybe some of the “hurt” feelings from some are actually *guilty* feelings That would account for some of the VITRIOL I have witnessed, against those who innocently dared to speak out on the benefits of breastfeeding. That’s God’s department not mine.  That Moms want to be altruistic,and SHARE with each other the blessings they have encountered with breastfeeding, should not be so suspect.

MarylandBill is of course correct that the Nazis killed more than twice the 6 million Jews who died under Hitler.  That just reinforces my point.  I’m not trying to be politically correct or “force” anyone to adjust his or her vocabulary.  I would simply expect that any person whose family was harmed by the Nazi regime would be deeply offended by someone equating that breathtaking brutality with the bullying of moms who aren’t able to empathize with the choices of other mothers.  It’s a shame that it’s become meaningless slang.

When a client tells me that she was accosted by a “nipple nazi” that gives me very little information except to know that she was upset by the interaction.  Sometimes further conversation reveals that someone made a comment that was totally misinterpreted.  If she tells me she felt bullied, though, that is not an exaggeration and is useful and sometimes I can even follow that up with the person in question.

Breastfeeding was very hard for me (kids allergic to everything, so I practically starved to keep them fed), and most of the employers in my area are terribly unsupportive, so I would never say anything negative to a mom who chooses not to breastfeed or has that choice made for her.  Every mom makes the best decisions she can, given her circumstances and resources.  Breastfeeding is very personal, and supporting it in a midwife’s office would be much more appropriately done with a conversation than a horrifying photo.

I have apologetically bottle fed all eight of my children.  No regrets.  Did I have mammary or sexual issues?  No.  Was I selfish and “want my body back”? No.  I just had no desire or interest in breastfeeding and made the best choice for us thereafter. 
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Do I think “breast is best”?  Sure.  But then I don’t always do the absolute best for all my children in every circumstance.  I’d like to think I do, but know I don’t.  If someone says they do, they’re lying.  They are also generally the “nazis” that accost women in the formula isle or doctor’s office.  The same ones that believe their pattern for parenting should be followed by everyone.  Pawh.

“But then I don’t always do the absolute best for all my children in every circumstance.  I’d like to think I do, but know I don’t.”

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Yes, yes, exactly.  I’m fairly convinced that organic food is healthier than other food, but I don’t feed it to my kids, because it would be hard, and I think they’re doing okay on the diet I give them.  I know that my kids would be better off if I cut way down on their screen time, but right now, letting them watch Wonder Pets in the morning makes my life much easier. 

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And I know women who DO go to great lengths to feed their kids nothing but organic food, and who don’t even own a TV—but they don’t put any effort into, for instance, reading good books to their kids, or exposing them to good music, because those things don’t seem as important to them, or because it would require too much effort.  But if I neglected those things, I’d feel horribly guilty.  And yes, I can show you all sorts of studies which prove that children are better off in a thousand ways when they are raised in a culturally rich atmosphere.

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No mother does the best she possibly can in every possible area of parenting; and as Laura says, anyone who says she does is lying (or else has unconsciously made decision about what is important and what is not—which is her right, but does not MAKE her right). 

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So either you can say, “Yes, it’s immoral not to breastfeed—but it’s just as immoral every time we fail to go to extreme lengths to make sure that every single aspect of every child’s physical, emotional, spiritual, cultural, and psychological health is cared for in what studies show to be the best possible way”—or else you could say, “Hm, maybe breastfeeding is not a moral issue.” 

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I, not wanting to appear insane, have decided that it’s not a moral issue.  Let’s be honest here:  we all give ourselves passes on one thing or another.  It makes life possible.  Some women pass on breastfeeding, and no, they don’t need to have a notarized statement proving that they almost died before giving it up. 

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Here’s a quick test:  does the catechism say that it’s a sin not to breastfeed?  Does the catechism say that mothers must do everything in their power to breastfeed?  No, and no.  It says that selfishness is a sin.  But selfish behavior looks very different in different people.

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Nobody (at least nobody here) is saying that we should keep quiet about breastfeeding, because it might hurt someone’s feelings.  But there is a world of difference between saying, “Here are the benefits of breastfeeding, and we should all at least consider it” and “Here are the benefits of breastfeeding.  Comply or face hellfire.”

@Anna Lisa—yes I’ve read the stats on breastfeedings and its benefits, have you? I mean actually looked at the consensus of the scientific information? Because apart from the reduction in infections, the causal link to all the issues you’ve stated is very far from clear. The science around breastfeeding’s true benefits versus spurious correlations is very murky.

Oxytocin plays a key role in bonding and feelings of love, but it is in no way dependent on breastfeeding. Individuals who engage in loving behaviors with another person—touching, stroking, gazing, even thinking loving thoughts—produce more oxytocin. Any mother who “mothers,” regardless of the method of feeding, will be well bonded to her babies and produce plenty of oxytocin. Unless, of course, depression and sleep deprivation take such a toll that she is unable to do so.

Anna Lisa, no one is saying that people should avoid discussing the benefits of breastfeeding.  We’re just saying that bottle feeding, while not the ideal, can be a healthy (physically and emotionally) feeding method, and it’s best to give bottle-feeding mothers the benefit of the doubt rather than to speculate that their reasoning was immoral.

*selfishness is a sin*  Some selfish decisions are FAR worse than letting a child watch Wonder Pets (which teaches kids about helping others in need, in a rather culturally, unglamorous way)—they actually involve loss of life. Now a six hour Wonder pets marathon starts to make the serious-o-meter start beeping louder.  Those choices that MUST give us serious pause are the ones that concern sacred bonds.  Anything that undermines sacred bonds MUST be given extremely serious consideration. Yes,God asks us to do the very best we can considering ALL of our circumstances, and when we don’t—we need to go to confession.  He alone reads hearts.  “Comply or face hellfire” is silly.  Maybe “nipple Nazis” DO exist, and yes, smug mothers are a pain in the you know what.  Pride is serious subject matter too! My point is that anyone who trivializes the significance of breastfeeding when compared to Similac is not doing the ignorant any favors. This is very serious subject matter that needs serious thought, compassion, support, and hearts filled with filial love.  I think ALL of us can agree that *the family* is under serious attack, and anything, ANYTHING we can do to build it up (kindly) is virtuous.  Muddying the water with name calling is divisive.  Now with that said,
“Peace to big Mama” I’m a bit cantankerous in the “final stretch” too, and you know I’m a BIG fan :)

@Claire, YES! Give them the benefit of the doubt.  Absolutely.  Love,and a shoulder too.

Okay, but here is my objection to your argument:  on rare occasions, choosing to use formula may lead to “loss of life” and on rare occasions, mothers who bottle feed do not form a “sacred bond” with their infants.  But these cases are extremely rare.  Most of the time, bottle feeding mothers are caring for their children very well, nutritionally and emotionally.  On the rare occasion that they are not, there is something much worse going on than making a choice about breast or bottle.  (And may I add:  I know breastfeeding moms who are bad mothers, who are lazy and neglectful, even abusive—but who consider breastfeeding to be the only moral choice.)

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Breastfeeding can be enchanting, enriching, and wonderful in a thousand ways, but “sacred?” Maybe you’re using that word in a slightly looser way than I’m reading it.  But you have said that breastfeeding is a moral issue, and that breastfeeding is sacred.  Using explicitly theological words implies that someone who doesn’t breastfeed is sinning.  I do wish you would state clearly whether or not you believe this to be so; and if you don’t believe it to be so, then I do wish you would not use theological words. 

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You say that “comply or face hellfire” is “silly,” but you are certainly implying that it’s sinful not to breastfeed.  Is it also sinful not to recycle?  Is it sinful to be ten pounds overweight?  Is it sinful to buy from Walmart?  Is it sinful to give your children the impression that math isn’t very important?  Because give me ten seconds, and I can find you people who consider all of the failings above to be serious, confessable sins. 

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I guess your main point, though is that speaking frankly about difficulties with breastfeeding might scare some women off trying or sticking with breastfeeding, and that would be terrible.  This reminds me very, very much (for this an other reasons) of a similar debate about NFP:  I’ve heard over and over that it’s dangerous and irresponsible to speak about struggles and problems and disappointments we may face when trying to practice NFP.  “What if some half-catechised young bride Googles NFP and this is what she comes up with?”  The answer is—yes, it could be discouraging for her, and might make her reluctant to try NFP. 

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But what about the couples who ARE struggling?  What if they Google NFP and come up with nothing but shiny happy stories put forward by people who’ve had a good experience?  I’ve heard over and over that it’s just as discouraging to feel that you are the only one in the world who struggles, and that this must be because you are an especially weak or pathetic person.  Just as reading the “bad stuff” could scare off someone on the fence, reading nothing but “good stuff” could push someone who’s struggling over the edge.

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So, yes, it’s tricky.  It could be risky to be honest.  But that’s what the internet is like.  The genie is out of the bottle.  As long as what we have to say is true, there is no particular reason we should be discouraged from giving personal accounts of our experiences, especially when the goal is to support and encourage other people who are wounded and discouraged. 

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I agree with you that the family is under attack; but sometimes attack comes in the form of idealized expectations from well-meaning enthusiasts.  For many women, building up their family comes in the form of being realistic about what sort of families they actually have, and giving women permission to consider themselves good mothers, even if they don’t look like everyone who makes a big DEAL about what a good mother they are.

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Also, I too deeply dislike using the word “nazi” to describe anyone who’s pushy.  My kids recently attended a lecture about Kristallnacht, and the women in charge tried to make it relevant for them by tying it in with playground bullying.  Um, no.  I recognize that calling people “nazis” is just a trendy (somewhat passe) figure of speech, but I think it trivializes true evil, and demonizes the merely irritating.

There are times when breastfeeding has lead to loss of life or harm to the baby due to inadequate milk supply or severe and significant allergy. In developed countries, many studies have shown no difference in mortality for breast versus bottlefed babies, and even for those studies which do show a difference it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine causality as there are other significant differences between families that choose to bottlefeed and those that choose to breastfeed. There is no good scientific evidence that shows that bottle feeding causes a poor bond, nor that breastfeeding causes a good one.

@Becky, here’s some comic relief:  Oxytocin is to breastfeeding as testosterone, and estrogen is to sex.  Can you imagine if we were deprived of THAT??  There would be rioting in the streets. LOL.  Your science is suspect.

Not breastfeeding doesn’t deprive anyone of oxytocin. Oxytocin is released during any bonding/loving activity between two people, and anyone, whether male or female, who lovingly cares for a baby experiences a significant rise in oxytocin. Anyone who lovingly cares for *anyone* experiences a rise in oxytocin.

I was wrong, however, about the studies showing no difference in mortality. There are very few published studies on mortality in developed country, and the one significant one found no statistically significant differences for most causes of mortality, except for accidental injuries. It, of course, notes that causality is difficult to determine.

Actually, oxtocin is the major hormone involved in orgasm, as well. It is in no way limited to breastfeeding.

Oh Simcha, yes you indeed misunderstand me.  Yes, bottle feeding is a *virtuous act* for some—Let us all examine our own souls, and present them before the Lord.  Simcha, I have been pregnant 12 times, I have EIGHT children.  How on earth could I POSSIBLY be idealizing ANYTHING?  I hear you.  I looooove how you make fun of what needs to be made fun of. I love your passion about NFP and guarding pure, marital love.  I’m not asking you to be a Pitbull about nursing.  I am SERIOUSLY worried when I see what I can only interpret as a serious disruption in the maternal bond on SO MANY LEVELS in this world.  I agreed with 98% of what you said in your post.

@ Becky, Oxytocin….YES!!!!!  Off to mass.  @Simcha, my kids are getting scrambled eggs (organic) for dinner because of this ;).

I am not offended by the image. We had to bottle feed our last two babies because they were not gaining proper weight nursing. To me, the image and caption seems to convey that mothers should breast feed if at all possible, and that if one does bottle feed they should be particularly careful and aware that formula does not have all the antibodies as in a mothers milk. But I did not interpret the photo and caption in a disparaging way towards those who bottle feed. This is just my opinion and impression. I would not get worked up over this.

Back from mass :)  My dear husband made dinner because Mama is peering at the laptop again!!!  He cooked dinner muttering: “At least give those sweet,sweet divine creatures the first few months if you can!” because we discussed it on the way home.  God love him.@ Becky, yes, breastmilk IS better if we don’t get lost in the exceptions.  Yes, I know how to read.  I don’t need to get in a war, citing sources. LOL.  Let’s just be honest.  @Simcha, I never said that breastfeeding was *sacred*.  I think LOVE is sacred.  Voluntary sins are far worse than involuntary ones.  Getting comfortable with venial sins is a problem.  I don’t walk in anyone’s shoes but my own.  What other mothers must endure, (like the woman in the photo) I bow my head to, may God comfort them.  My life has been sweet, and blessed enough to allow for many things, including being a SAHM, and having ALL THOSE KIDS.  I thank God for this.  It hasn’t always been a rose garden though (you have no idea). Soooooooo humbled by this. Breastfeeding my kids despite the accompanying hardship has been a little slice of heaven, getting right up there with the other sources of blessed oxytocin! I love to share this sweet,simple message. Please don’t mistake filial love for judgement, questionable agendas, or creepy theology! Sometimes the simple invitations in life are the most heavenly.  When I see people suffering, I want to say: “Don’t give up! Don’t listen to the world’s version!”  There are billions of stories, and billions of shades of gray because of this, and yes, I bow my head in compassion, offering a prayer. Some hardships just simply have to be endured, and made sense of in light of the cross…and an upright, undefeated conscience means so very much… So with that said, to my bottle-feeding sisters—BLESSINGS—-To my breastfeeding sisters—-BLESSINGS.  Let’s all contemplate the *sacred*:  God made man, innocent, vulnerable, nursing with contentment at His mother’s beautiful breast.

Anna Lisa, I want to beg your pardon - I’ve been reading the comments via email, and some of them don’t make it to my inbox for some reason.  I didn’t realize that you had lost your dear son so recently.  Your story is very sad and beautiful, and I hope I haven’t brought you any pain by pursuing this argument so vehemently.

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@Edward, it’s wonderful that you were not offended.  Possibly if you were a nine-months pregnant women wearing a hospital gown and already an emotional wreck, you would have been less able to approach the image of a starving child in such a rational way.  I’ll try to take your advice not to get worked up unnecessarily in the future, though.

Thank you for your kindness Simcha.  It means a lot.  With all that I have to do with so many kids(my 18-year-old is having a big party outside right now)  Your thoughts and insights have become a favorite outlet of mine.  Your safe delivery is in my prayers. :)

SO…I haven’t read everything everyone else has written yet but I have been thinking about this post a lot and started to write a response lots of times and then been interrupted, so, the kids are in be, here goes…
1.
Like Simcha, I spend a third of my day (and half my night) breastfeeding, my fat, happy baby!  But that wasn’t always the case for me.
My Mum is a die-hard breastfeeding advocate/midwife and my mother-in-law breastfeed 7 children, including a downs baby and was head of le leche league…So before my first baby was born I could have had a bumper sticker saying breast is best, but then…
I couldn’t feed my baby, and I, like other women, agonised over giving him a bottle, partly because of social pressure, but I think at a deeper level there was something else that made the decision so difficult.
What is that?  That heartbreak, is it to do with grace building on nature?  Why did it hurt so much?  (I even went to confession about it…luckily I had a priest who set me straight!)  That grief was very real for me and I have often pondered it.
(my story is in this book:  Women of Hope: http://www.connorcourt.com/catalog1/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=100)  (Am I allowed to put that in there?!)
2.
I have a close friend who had breast cancer at a young age and has had a double mastectomy, she partially breastfed her 2nd baby with one breast - what a hero!  And I know, she wants to screech at anyone who gives her funny looks/snide comments when she is bottlefeeding.  She has 3 lovely, healthy little boys, and is now clear of cancer, Praise the Lord!
3.
Lactavists! 
(Can’t take credit for that…another of my friends came up with that term after a visit from a Lactation Consultant/Zealot, but I giggled about it for quite some time).

Anna Lisa, I too am so sorry for the loss of your child.  I think it’s great that in the midst of your grief you are advocating for babies.  And I completely agree with you that breastfeeding is best and the benefits need to be discussed.  If I had had a child biologically (I’ve only conceived three children and have never been able to carry beyond the first trimester), I would have loved to have breastfed, and I like to think that I would have done it exclusively and into toddlerhood).  And even as a former bottle-feeding mom, I freely discuss the advantages of breastfeeding with others.

Anna Lisa, I am also sorry for your loss.

Im just wondering where everyone here who feels pressured or chastised for bottle feeding is from? I live in Toronto Canada and have never gotten a dirty look, or a comment about my CHOICE to formula feed, strangers don’t approach me, friends have nothing to say on the issue and certainly family has no opinion! Maybe I’m just lucky or maybe because I feel absolutely no guilt, im not constantly looking for that dirty look or that whisper behind my back? Just saying!!! Breast is only best for some, not for all ;)

Melissa, I live near Albany NY, but I think it’s more a question of the social circles that people travel in.  In the Orthodox Catholic world, breastfeeding is very popular (which well it should be).  The downside of this is that some people are over-zealous and prematurely speculate about the reasons that bottle-feeding mothers have used for making that choice.  As an adoptive mother, I can’t tell you how many people in the online community (I don’t have any local friends who are faithful Catholics, so I spend a lot of time online in those communities) have pushed me to do adoptive breastfeeding.  At the time that my son was an infant, this was not feasible for many reasons, and I got really tired of having to explain myself.  It’s pretty sad when even an adoptive mother isn’t given the benefit of the doubt about her reasons for bottle-feeding.  I firmly believe that breastfeeding is the healthiest option, but that formula is a valid alternative.  Not as good, but good enough under the right circumstances.  It hurts when people bash formula in their zeal for promoting breastmilk.  That’s why I appreciate Anna Lisa’s approach of promoting the benefits of breastfeeding without bashing formula (unlike our friend Sabine who commented a few days ago).  I think it’s completely appropriate to discuss the benefits of breastfeeding and its advantages over bottle-feeding, and even to point out ways in which formula/bottle feeding is less than ideal.  But this can be done without equating it to poison (again, refer to Sabine’s comment), and it can also be done without pointing fingers at individual bottle-feeding mothers and speculating about the reasons for their decision.

Thank you, Simcha, for being so reasonable and generous and full of charity and encouraging us to be the same.

Claire and Becky, thank you :)
@Claire, what a beautiful reunion it will be in heaven when all Mothers who have lost children, will find them in their arms again…

Very true, Anna Lisa.  And, if it weren’t for my miscarriages, I never would have adopted my son, who is the light of my life.  So God can definitely bring blessings out of heartache.

What I don’t understand is why everyone has such an opinion in this issue??? It’s absolutely no ones business but the parents of the child being fed, to me, it’s like everyone getting pissed off at the brand of peanut butter fed to your kids, im 29, my mother did not breast feed any of us, we are all healthy never ever get sick and most of my friends weren’t breast fed either, and formula has come along way since then, I think if I doesn’t effect YOUR life directly , why get all riled up about it???? It’s not your business anyway! It’s those mean girls from high school who were so self conscious they had to pick on other girls, just all grown up and finding ways to intimidate and harass other woman due to there own self hate, woman should rally together and support each other cause it’s hard enough to be a new mother or mother to a new baby as it is, offer advice when solicited and keep your opinions to yourself and stop bullying!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bullying is bulling at any age!

At the (ILCA) Lactation Conference in Chicago in 1987, I saw this photo and heard the LC who took it and her story.  I didn’t read all the comments above—and was amazed at how many took time to write!—but don’t remember her story the way it was portrayed above.

The woman with the twin babies INSISTED that the LC take her picture
to warn women about the dangers of not nursing. I believe she was from India and was FORCED to nurse only the boy by her Mother-in-law, who refused to believe anyone could nurse two babies and thought the girl was, of course, less valuable.  This MOTHER wanted the world to see the photo to encourage mothers to nurse.  It had NOTHING to do, in this particular case, with clean water.  They had money. They were “wealthy” enough. It was a purely cultural choice by her mother-in-law and her despair in being forced to watch her sweet girl slowly starve and die.

All I know is that nursing your baby is a gift from God.  Mary nursed Jesus, (despite a priest once telling me to “prove it!”)
(What, God wanted an inferior product for His only Son?)

I also know it’s very motivating to be told, as women in Japan were during an epidemic of necrotzing enterocolitis, “use this (cylinder hand pump) and bring milk back to the hospital for your baby, or it will die.”
I truly believe formula is only a step or two above soda pop for babies, and that “bad” batches of formula, especially distributed thru American health departments, have adversely affected yearly “classes” of school children in my town (where probably half are on WIC any given year.)
American women usually complain of “not enough milk” whereas Australian women quit because they have “too much milk.”  Our mothers are also stymied by pacifiers, hospital-given formula gift packages, cultural stereotypes of formula babies “sleeping better,” being told NOT
to co-sleep (must have been awfully hard for those babies in caves to stay warm, way off by themselves!) and not being helped by a competent La Leche League Leader or lactation consultant with extensive personal experience.
They also have to worry about going back to work and separation when our society should prioritize jobs for men with families and keeping the nursing duad home for as long as they are together!

Catholics, especially, should follow the lead of St. Francis, by putting a nursing Madonna picture in EVERY CHURCH, and setting the example for every mother.  Ecological breastfeeding is essential to Natural Family Planning, which the Church so espouses. It’s fairly hypocritical, I think, for it not to encourage the mothers more than they do in this regard, from the pulpit—certainly on Christmas and Mother’s Day, at least! I have seldom, in so many years of listening, (I’m 62, and my oldest child is 37) even heard a token reference to nursing, from the pulpit.

It really is a duty of mothers, and a right of infants, to be breastfed. (Look at the natural design!  Just like male and female is God’s design, so are mother and baby!) I’ve studied this for 39 years, and realize we are STILL learning about these amazing benefits.

It is a deep sadness to hear about the mothers who did not receive the support needed to be successful.  I KNOW it tears at the heart of Our Blessed Mother. 

She is the one who told Juan Diego, “Listen, and let it penetrate you heart, my dear little son; do not be troubled or weighted down with grief.  Don not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? AM I NOT YOUR FOUNTAIN OF LIFE; ARE YOU NOT IN THE FOLDS OF MY MANTLE? IN THE CROSSING OF MY ARMS? Is there anything else you need?”
Our Lady of Guadalupe 1531

I have apologetically bottle fed all eight of my children.  No regrets.  Did I have mammary or sexual issues?  No.  Was I selfish and “want my body back”? No.  I just had no desire or interest in breastfeeding and made the best choice for us thereafter. 
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Do I think “breast is best”?  Sure.  But then I don’t always do the absolute best for all my children in every circumstance.  I’d like to think I do, but know I don’t.  If someone says they do, they’re lying.  They are also generally the “nazis” that accost women in the formula isle or doctor’s office.  The same ones that believe their pattern for parenting should be followed by everyone.  Pawh.

Thank you for this, such a great distinction to make. And what a shocking photo for any medical practitioner to display, shameful.

All this talk of the selfishness/immoratlity of bottlefeeding reminds me of a quote from St. Teresa of Avlia (I think she is the one who said it.  If I have my saints mixed up help me out someone…) She said, “A sin not intended is a in not committed.”  Careful not to condemn all the bottlefeeders.  Sometimes it wasn’t “medical necessity”, rather, it was as simple a decision as “Whatsthe best I can do with the resources I have?”

Anne: I think there’s a major difference there, which is that nobody NEEDS to smoke or drink while pregnant (or arguably at all—sacramental wine excluded, of course, but it’s not like we’re taking huge gulps of it).  The sheer unnecessariness of it adds to the horror.
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Sabine reminds me of the flouride nuts who shriek that toothpaste “contains an ingredient also found in RAT POISON!”  Uh-huh…maybe, maybe not…and fertilizer can be used to make bombs; that doesn’t mean Farmer Bob down the road is plotting another Oklahoma City.  It has been said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and that couldn’t be more true in the case of chemistry, in which a subtle spelling error or missed number can mean the difference between harmless and toxic—some people I almost wouldn’t trust with a baking-soda and vinegar experiment.  In any case, I am going to need to see some compelling evidence that formula companies *in the first world, anyway* are so cheap that they’re willing to poison the very children who are their raison d’etre and keep them in business.
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Pat: I don’t think anyone is disputing the need for education, or the potential value of photos as educational tools.  The question, in my mind, is what is the TIME and PLACE in which this should occur? 
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Michelle: Why not?  Can you blame them for offering?  The solution is simple: don’t use it.  Give it to someone who will. 
I think in order to call it a “moral issue” without qualifying the statement, it must apply to everyone.  Clearly that is not the case, as God does not put people in situations where it is literally impossible to make any morally acceptible choice, or the universe would be a truly cruel and awful place (reference: recent Jimmy Akin podcast).
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Edward: no offense, but I think it is safe to assume that you also are not pregnant!  Small detail… :)

Spambot is apparently freaking out over my legit comment…

Let’s try this one more time.
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Anne: I think there’s a major difference there, which is that nobody NEEDS to smoke or drink while pregnant (or arguably at all—sacramental wine excluded, of course, but it’s not like we’re taking huge gulps of it).  The sheer unnecessariness of it adds to the horror.
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Sabine reminds me of the flouride nuts who shriek that toothpaste “contains an ingredient also found in RAT POISON!”  Uh-huh…maybe, maybe not…and fertilizer can be used to make bombs; that doesn’t mean Farmer Bob down the road is plotting another Oklahoma City.  It has been said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and that couldn’t be more true in the case of chemistry, in which a subtle spelling error or missed number can mean the difference between harmless and toxic—some people I almost wouldn’t trust with a baking-soda and vinegar experiment.  In any case, I am going to need to see some compelling evidence that formula companies *in the first world, anyway* are so cheap that they’re willing to poison the very children who are their raison d’etre and keep them in business.
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Pat: I don’t think anyone is disputing the need for education, or the potential value of photos as educational tools.  The question, in my mind, is what is the TIME and PLACE in which this should occur? 
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Michelle: Why not?  Can you blame them for offering?  The solution is simple: don’t use it.  Give it to someone who will. 
I think in order to call it a “moral issue” without qualifying the statement, it must apply to everyone.  Clearly that is not the case, as God does not put people in situations where it is literally impossible to make any morally acceptible choice, or the universe would be a truly cruel and awful place (reference: recent Jimmy Akin podcast).
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Edward: no offense, but I think it is safe to assume that you also are not pregnant!  Small detail… :)

I have to say, I kind of like “nothx”‘s approach to the lactivists: bite me. I do bf my daughter and think it’s great, but there is the whole other issue of needing to stand up for oneself. Maybe women wouldn’t have things so hard if 1.) they weren’t judging each other so much, but 2.) their response to other people’s BS was, “How is this your problem? Why are you talking to me about my breasts?” Women deal with a lot of guilt and manipulation because we allow other people to emotionally dump on us. It’s good to listen when someone has something worthwhile to say, but it’s also really good to not listen when someone is just taking advantage of your social graces.

www.lettersto.us

I was determined to breastfeed my first baby and after a lot of obstacles we managed to go 2 years when I finally chose to wean her.  My second baby was a more natural nurser but had reflux and had medicine for that but we persevered with a special diet for me and he nursed almost 2 years.  My third is ready to turn 2 in January and I am desperately trying to wean her.  So, breastfeeding worked out well for me and I’ve been doing it a long time.  Do I think it benefitted my children?  Probably.  It certainly saved us a lot of money.

However, I challenge anyone to step into a CCD class at their parish and pick out who had formula and who had breastmilk and who had a combo of both.  There is no way to know! 

The mommy wars are so tough now.  So many people think that some of these infancy decisions matter so much.  The baby doesn’t care about breastmilk or co-sleepers or if they arrived “naturally”.  They just care if mom and dad picks them up and holds them,  loves them and tends to them.  And later they want structure and attention.  The rest is all just parenting “noise” that detracts from the important things.

Mary, formula is not a step above soda pop.  That is an ignorant and highly insensitive comment.  There was a reason that baby starved and died, and if it wasn’t unsafe water, it had to be something else.  I’m not trying to justify the woman not being allowed to nurse her baby, but normal infant formulas do not cause starvation.

Mary, it is simply and absolutely not true that formula is merely one step above soda pop. It is in fact a highly nutritious, complete food, even if it is not as beneficial as breastmilk. Moreover, it is absolutely not true that “ecological breastfeeding is essential to Natural Family Planning.” Natural Family Planning can be used whether you breastfeed “ecologically,” breastfeed in a more restrained way, combo feed, or bottle feed.

Anna Lisa, you write “I don’t need to get in a war, citing sources. LOL.  Let’s just be honest.”

Yes, lets be honest. Honesty means NOT exaggerating NOR minimizing the differences between breastmilk and formula. There have been several posts in this discussion which completely exaggerated the benefits of breastfeeding. I am assuming that these posters are being honest, but learned these distortions from those who were being dishonest. It is honest to note the science behind many of the claimed benefits of breastfeeding is murky, contradictory or weak. It is honest to state which benefits are probable, what the likely extent of those benefits are, which benefits are possible but unproved, and which benefits are unlikely based on the scientific evidence. Yet I continually see breastfeeding advocates cite benefits which have been disproved through further research, or exaggerate the extent of the benefits of nursing, or don’t put the benefits in context. If everyone was honest, there’d be a lot less guilt and argument over the issue. Honesty is absolutely what this discussion needs.

Mary: you are one of the bullies I’m referring to, formula is not 1 step above pop, that’s an ignorant comment from someone who has obviously no clue what she’s talking about maybe the problem is everyone making infant feeding a religious issue and not a matter of FACT one, some mothers are unable to or CHOOSE not breast feed and it’s people like you that make them feel guilty and doubt their ability to mother! Shame on you! My son is proudly formula fed by me, he has a wonderful bond with his daddy as well! I have never felt guilty of my choice to feed him, he’s happy, healthy and smart! He was reaching 6month milestones at 3-4 months and the dr couldn’t be happier! So maybe in your wise years you should not chastise someone for how they feed and ask maybe why

@ Mary, Becky is right.  If you can use NFP when you’re not breastfeeding (either before you have a child or after they’re weaned), then you can’t say ecological breastfeeding is essential to NFP.  Also, you can’t guarantee to every woman that even if she does exclusively breastfeed, her cycles will be delayed for X amount of time, as every woman’s body is different (which is why NFP is explained to be more than just the “rhythm method”).  I’ve heard of people getting regular cycles back in just a couple months even while breastfeeding.

Wow. Y’all are still doing this to each other? I thought we moved past this and young mothers today didn’t have to put up with this nonsense. I dealt with the La Leche League bullies back in the 80s and had hoped we’d gotten past all this meangirlmommy stuff.

I attempted breastfeeding with my first child, ran into some difficulty, had a LLL rep. visit me in the hospital, and she so physically abused me (traumatic enough for anyone, but a thousand times more traumatic for someone who’d been sexually molested as a child) I told her to leave immediately, reported her to the hospital in question, banned her from my room, and rang for the nurse to fetch me a bottle. The bottle feeding worked out so well, I chose to bottle feed with each of my subsequent children.

Of coure, the mommy wars were full-on in those days, working v. SAHM, natural childbirth v. epidurals, bottle v. breast, etc. I can’t think of a single thing some faction of meangirlmomies didn’t bully the rest of us about, and that goes for both sides of any issue—it’s never the issue, it’s the extremism, ya know?

My SIL was one of the loudest, proudest boob-nazis (a term I use as unapologetically as I ever popped open a can of Similac) ever, whipping the gals out wherever, whenever, and for children who were old enough to walk across the room, unbutton her blouse and pull ‘em out on their own. Oh, she never tired of telling me how I was destroying my kids’ future, their health, their ability to get into good schools, etc. My other SIL and I actually started a drinking game at family get-togethers based on her regularly scheduled breastfeeding lectures.

Fast forward a few years, her children are all obese (as is she, her sister and her mother), they’re not really all that bright (nice kids, for the most part, but rather dull), they never got into anything but low-ranking colleges in spite of being raised in one of the school districts that makes the Top Ten American HS list every year, and were sickly all their lives (chronic ear infections, upper respiratory issues, and horrible cystic acne, plus the obesity issues). My kids are all super bright, accomplished athletes (we’re a running family, and we all run competitively to this day), and went to top-ranked universities and graduate schools and are all well on their way in promising careers.

So go figure. I guess I should thank that boob nazi I was accosted by. Looks like my kids did extremely well on formula and my SILs ended up a hot mess on the breast. Goes to show breastfeeding isn’t the only factor in raising healthy kids. The problem with extremists is that they never see the full picture, they never understand concepts like “balance” and “moderation”. They put all their eggs in one basket and forget about everything else. Had my SIL gotten off her high horse enough to pay attention to her kids and what they needed throughout their lives instead of it all being about her and her agenda, they’d probably have turned out healthier and more well-rounded (no pun intended, lol!).

I think the “can of soda” comment is probably referring to the unfortunate fact that most infant formulas have high fructose corn syrup as their first or second ingredient.  The organic formulas I’ve looked at tend to have it farther down the ingredient list.  HFCS is the main carbohydrate source for soy formulas made for lactose-intolerant babies.

I think big Pharma could do a lot better for our babies than that.

One of the themes that Simcha brings up that I think is worth calling extra attention to, is the subject of “self forgiveness”.  Whether an actual sin was committed, and evil is tempting us to get down on ourselves for it, or we are scrupulous, thinking there is sin where there ISN’T, Jesus wants us to be at peace. I love what a good priest once told me:
“It is not in the falling…it is in the getting up again.  Rectify your intentions.”...
Catholic women from the *United Sates of America* can have more pressures and responsibilities than *third* world women.  We are expected to be good “pioneer women”. Even the poor women in poor countries often have layers and layers of family members who help with child rearing or a sense of solidarity.
I always feel guilty when I am newly pregnant because I can’t accomplish an impressive list of things.  I feel just as bad, if not worse than when I’m in the third trimester when everyone is giving me a free pass.  Nausea is the worst!!  It adds to the misery when chores stack up and you find yourself crashed on the couch, looking at the world through a dark tunnel.  I’d much rather buzz around doing a bunch of things, biting off more than I can chew.
If we are trying truly to live uprightly, we need to have mercy on OURSELVES.  Jen Fulwieler wrote something very good which touched on this—WE OFTEN TRY TO ACCOMPLISH TOO MUCH—we hold ourselves to a standard that God Himself doesn’t hold us to.
I always loved that breastfeeding FORCED me to slow down.  It didn’t matter if duties were screaming at me to be attended to—baby came first—Nobody could argue with that.  I loved that I could lay my head on a pillow, breathe deeply and BE CALM.  The tranquilizing “let down” effect was amazing. I did my best spiritual reading and meditation that way—because I allowed myself to be WORTHY of slowing down.  It saved my sanity and deeply fed my spirituality. 
I am so thankful for this.
Moms with babies need regular, good breaks to recharge the batteries any way you slice it…breast or bottle!

“I think the “can of soda” comment is probably referring to the unfortunate fact that most infant formulas have high fructose corn syrup as their first or second ingredient.”

This is false. No formula sold in the United States has high fructose corn syrup as an ingredient at all. Several specialty (lactose free, low-lactose, soy or hypoallergenic) formulas have corn syrup or corn syrup solids as the sugar source instead of lactose, however corn syrup is metabolized quite differently to high fructose corn syrup. In any case, formula contains the same amount of sugars as breastmilk, not more.

One of the most hurtful things one can ever say to a woman is to call her a bad mother.  So why is it that some women seem to thrive on calling into question other mother’s choices for infant feeding? And why, pray tell, should there be any kind of sermon from a pulpit, token or not, on how a mother feeds her babies as long as she feeds them? Is it really a matter of faith and sin? In that case should we expect to see a Bishop’s imprimater on appropriate feeding regimes?  And why hasn’t the Church spoken on this important question?  Or is it true they only care about children before they are born and afterward they turn a blind eye to so-called Mothers who put soda pop or rat poison into bottles for their babies. As long as it doesn’t involve abortion or birth control, mom can poison them and no one in the Magisterium cares. Is that it?  Should we request that they provide a Nihil Obstat on baby food jars lest we fall into error should the unfortunate little bottle-fed tyke somehow live long enough to sample solid foods?  What if some careless breastfeeding mother routinely feeds her 11 1/2 month-old honey, peanut butter, or heaven forfend, shellfish?  Shouldn’t she KNOW you can never feed those foods before 12 months?  Is excommunication too strong a penalty for such egregious errors?

@Becky, your tone is really angry and defensive, your claims patently false.  It is like trying to convince someone that life begins at conception when they obviously don’t want to believe it.  I refuse to get into a war with you.  I don’t want anyone who had an infant who died of pneumonia to feel bad by slamming them over the head with studies.  Please get up to speed with the medical community.  You have google and I have laundry :)! Let’s be a “bully free zone”. Peace.

[comment deleted by Simcha]

I can’t understand why Catholic Moms (mostly online but sometimes in ‘real life’) will insist on making choices they have made for their own family into moral issues for everyone else.  Implying that because THEY made a certain decision that EVERYONE should or is morally obligated to make the same choice.  Simcha mentioned something similar in a comment above and no one has taken her up on it:  Please show us in the Catechism of the Catholic Church where exactly is says we are morally obliged to nourish our infants at our breasts.  Or that it is a sin of selfishness to try and fail at BF (or not even try at all).  Never in my life have I heard a priest mention BF in a homily and I suspect there is a reason for that. Please stop making insecure new moms feel incompetent or make them feel like they might be sinning when they are not.  I’ve seen moms on this site (and some other Catholic sites) do this with a number of issues.  I know some of you mean very well however your choice of words can make others feel bad about things for which they should not feel bad.

Thank you again Simcha for your writing and I hope that baby comes soon!  :)

Also, I should add that this comment isn’t really directed at anyone in particular and I am not trying to bully anyone or imply anyone else is bullying.  I feel that in general bullying is hard to define.  But that’s just my opinion (about bullying).

Anyone who’s had basic First Confession catechesis knows that anyone who did not intend to do wrong did not commit a sin.  So anything done out of ignorance is not sinful.

However, NB, I cannot agree that breastfeeding vs. bottle feeding is in NO way a moral issue.  We are all called to do the best WE CAN.  What determines what we CAN do is different for each person.  But no one disputes that breast milk is superior to formula.  Any reasonably educated American woman will know that breast milk is superior to formula.  If, knowing that, she CHOOSES to bottle feed when there is no reason she could not breastfeed, well, that is a moral failure.  It may be a minor one depending on her reason, or it may be a major one.  But it’s still a moral failing.

Anyone who tried and couldn’t, anyone who tried and got no support (that’s others’ moral failing right there), anyone who was prevented from trying by other people’s ignorance or prejudice… they did not CHOOSE to not breastfeed.  No moral failing.  Anyone who tried really hard, and then gave up because it was so difficult, no one can blame them, because at the end of the day, they have to feed the baby no matter how.

BUT people who choose to bottle feed without ever trying the breast, with no good reason for it, those people have a moral issue.  It’s dishonest to say otherwise.  The same as mothers who COULD give their children fresh fruit, and choose instead to give them those gummy fake fruit snacks.  There is a moral issue there.  A mother who has nothing to give but fake gummy fruit snacks, no issue.  See the difference?

Folks, I’ve been running around all day and am skimming through comments now.  Have deleted one so far (by SMC) - which was way, way, over the line of decency.  Let’s try to keep this civil.  I understand very, very well what an emotional topic this can be, but I really think that most of us here are striving for more clarity, so please think twice before posting while angry (something I should do more often myself, obviously).  It would be a shame to have to close the comments, but I will if I have to.  Thanks!

I’m not trying to be angry or defensive, I’m trying to be direct. This is a subject I feel strongly about because I feel so strongly about the truth, and because I so often see the truth distorted around this issue. Can you please tell me which of my claims are “patently false”? I will be happy to provide evidence for any and all of them, and they are in keeping with the beliefs of the scientific community.

Well, sorry Simcha. But there are a lot of different kinds of bullying and passive aggression and playing emotional cards is one of them.

The upshot is that poster is implying all kinds of inappropriate things about breast v. bottle and there is no legitimate basis for either the theological implications or health/nutrition implications and now we’re all somehow prevented from confronting her because she’s chosen to play that card.

Bottom line is the picture is manipulative—it’s meant to be manipulative—but it provides no hard facts regarding anything. Not one single “fact” is part of that manipulative little package.

The truth is that for well-to-do western women, formula feeding is not necessarily any less beneficial to a child than breast feeding. It just isn’t. The reason many of the boob-nazis my generation encountered are now silent is because their own kids probably grew up and the proof just wasn’t in the pudding. I see it all the time—some extremist, agenda-driven mom bullying everyone around them and then, whoopsies, a few years later and she’s hiding from everyone ‘cause her own kid is everything she swore everyone else’s would turn out to be. Happens all the time, regardless of the issue at hand, and people are going to indulge in a heaping helping of schadenfraude when it does.

Also, bottle feeding is NOT SINFUL. It isn’t. To even imply such a thing, however, IS SINFUL. I don’t care about your tragic personal stories, anyone who lays that guilt trip on another mother is gonna eat those words come judgment day.

There is no “moral” issue unless you can prove that exclusively breast fed children are always, without exception, significantly smarter,  healthier, better adjusted, more successful, more talented, more gifted, etc., than ALL non-breast fed children, and no one can prove that, and the reason they can’t is because it isn’t true.

And, for all you young mommies who think you know everyting, listen up—your kids are going to grow up and you’re not going to be able to control them forever. They’re going to do all kinds of crazy things you didn’t think they’d do because you thought you had all the answers. Be careful. All the breastfeeding in the world isn’t going to save them from stupid decisions, and the kids most likely to make a whole bunch of stupid, life altering decisions are the ones who aren’t being emotionally fed, respected and taught to be self-sufficient individuals. Politicizing your kids is not doing any of those things.

@SMC I assume you were speaking about me.  I brought up the death of my baby to prove the point that just because you are not able to partake of something joyful doesn’t mean you have to be angry and defensive about the woman a few doors down who IS. You pretty much proved my point.  I said SELFISHNESS was *sinful*—IF IT APPLIES.  You said *“I don’t care about your tragic personal story”*  Well your venomous attitude speaks for itself.  Hate is hate is hate.  I bet that attitude didn’t turn out too well for you either.  We create our own hell don’t we?  I’m glad you posted what you did, because it speaks volumes, I can only imagine what was deleted.

@SMC:  You said “now we’re all somehow prevented from confronting her because she’s chosen to play that card.”

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No, no one has been prevented from confronting her.  Several people have answered her directly, including me.  I deleted your comment because you were being inhumane.  You seem like an articulate person.  Your comments won’t lose any of their force if you restrain yourself a little bit. 

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Seriously, I don’t have the energy to babysit the combox all night, but please, if this turns into a “You’re a bully!”  - “No, YOU’RE a bully!” then I’ll just close comments.  I think both you and Anna Lisa have had sufficient opportunity to make your points.  I happen to agree with your points more than I do with Anna Lisa’s, but you’ll notice that I’ve let Anna Lisa’s comments stand, because she’s behaving decently.

anna lisa- I hope SMC wasn’t talking about you losing Ambrose- just about the minor tragedy of other writers not being able to breast feed.

I lost a baby at 20 weeks (6 years ago) and they put me in ‘baby land’ too- the problem with a mom who has lost a child is that she is too healthy for the other parts of a hospital- I hope they gave you loving care. You have a wonderful attitude in that you are offering your suffering for others- and I am sure that baby Ambrose is a great intercessor as well!

Anna Lisa, you’ve been passively-aggressively intimating that anyone who chooses to formula-feed their babies for any but the most extreme medical/health reasons is acting selfishly and therefore sinfully.

My attitude isn’t one of hate. It’s one of having had to deal with extreme passive-aggressives before and being completely on to that line of bullying. It cuts no ice with me, dear.

Why don’t you read your own words—you imply, you intimate, you suggest, you insinuate all kinds of ugly things about other women, but you back off and go all icky-poo-cutesy-precious-moments-spirichooooal when people call you on what you’re really saying here.

I’m on to that kind of tactic and have zero tolerance for it, so save it for someone who’s buyin’. Ain’t me, and ain’t ever gonna be me.

Simcha, please enlighten me then.  I am not saying that with sarcasm. If a baby comes into this world in need of the immunities that only a mother’s milk can provide, isn’t this cause for SERIOUS consideration?  What OUR bodies, and a tiny, frail, seven-pound-body can withstand makes for a world of difference.  I am NOT talking about ANYONE who does not have the ability to REASONABLY Breastfeed! I am not likening the choice to provide colostrum and immunities to a tiny, frail, baby with an hour of “Wonder Pets” for OBVIOUS reasons.  Perhaps this should be more about a call to action for banked mother’s milk.  You say you confronted me.  I said breastfeeding was not dogma.  I clarified that LOVE is sacred.  Selfishness is sin.  Yes, let God decide on who is prioritizing what with what.  Please confront me with what needs confronting.  Others on this thread have no credibility whatsoever.

@ Jennifer, yes!!  @NB, Who said to put breastfeeding in the catechism?  I am sure Simcha is very familiar with people who try to make a point by distorting her comments too.

@priest’s wife, THANK YOU.  Balm for the soul.

I unfortunately had to read that comment because it came into my email inbox before it got deleted.  Anna Lisa, I’m very glad that you didn’t see it.  I don’t 100% agree with all your comments, but I certainly don’t find them offensive.  Even if I did, while I might continue to debate the things I disagreed about, I would never, in a million years, kick a person in their most raw wound, and I can’t think of anything more raw than the recent loss of a baby.  I wouldn’t even do that to Mary and Sabine, who I find highly offensive, let alone someone like you who has tried to bridge the gap and show some charity toward bottle-feeding moms.  I just can’t believe that someone on a Catholic message board could be this cruel.  Please know that most of us care very deeply about what you have been through, and we know that you would never dishonor your precious child by using her in a manipulative way in a debate.  I understand why you brought it up, to illustrate a point, not to be manipulative.  And your point really resonated with me because it’s something I try to remind myself of when I start feeling resentful about people who have conceived and carried to term child after child while I have yet to carry to term even one:  when I start having those selfish thoughts, I remind myself exactly of your analogy of the paraplegic.  Do they think it’s unfair that there are people who can run when they can’t even walk?  Do they resent people for being so insensitive as to walk in their presence?  These kinds of analogies are very important reminders.

“The same as mothers who COULD give their children fresh fruit, and choose instead to give them those gummy fake fruit snacks.  There is a moral issue there.”

Huh?  Wow.  I must have the dumbed-down version of the catechism.  Just as well…

Yes, I remember very well those old CCL materials from the early or mid 1990s that posed the question of whether breastfeeding was a moral obligation. In fact, the unpublished thesis quoted was written by a priest of the diocese I lived in at the time—a very devoted but very, very super rad-trad type of priest.

I was pregnant with my first (and only) child at the time and yes, I tried very, very hard to breastfeed her. Trouble was, when three or four days had passed since her birth and nothing was coming out, my husband got all panicked that she was going to starve and insisted we go out and get formula, so we did. I tried pumping too but I was never able to produce more than a few dribbles. And yes, I felt like a failure since I aspired to be a good Catholic mommy and the comments about bottlefeeding being a sin weighed heavily on me at the time. I told myself I would probably have better luck with the next baby, but unfortunately, there never was any next baby.

I think some women are just genetically not predisposed to breastfeeding. My own mother had the same problem, tried to breastfeed but could never produce any milk. Thanks, Simcha, for being so understanding.

Anna Lisa, I was refering (based on memory and I’ll freely admit my memory isn’t perfect) to this comment:  Posted by Simcha Fisher on Saturday, Dec 3, 2011 5:33 PM (EST)

“Here’s a quick test:  does the catechism say that it’s a sin not to breastfeed?  Does the catechism say that mothers must do everything in their power to breastfeed?  No, and no.  It says that selfishness is a sin.  But selfish behavior looks very different in different people.”

Someone else mentioned referencing the CCC above as well, but I can’t find the exact quote at the moment.

And it was not my intent to distort her comment or anyone else’s.  My apologies if it appeared that way, I was merely trying to expound upon an idea expressed earlier.  I was trying to make the distinction between making the solitary issue of BF a moral one.  Which seems to be of the opinion you are of.  And you entitled to that opinion.  Now please note, I am a proud breastfeeding mother of a 16 month old so I am definitely for BF and encouraging it for women.  But I think we cross a line when we start making this into a moral issue.  And since I am no theologian or have any teaching Authority in that regard, I look to official Church teaching for guidance.  I think we cannot judge another’s choice to bottle feed or to not BF as being selfish.  It’s impossible to know the desire of another’s heart.

My comment just got marked as spam, so until it arrives (if it does) I just want to say that I did not intend to distort anyone’s comments.  I was expanding on a comment I had read earlier (which I quoted in my ‘spammed’ comment).  My apologies if it appeared that way.

I am reminded yet again of why I strongly dislike online discussions/debates and generally stay away from them.  One’s intentions can so easily be misunderstood!

For the record, I currently breastfeed my 16 month old and am definitely pro breastfeeding.  Not that that should matter at all.  I did however give my son a fruit leather last night when I could have given him a perfectly good apple that was in our fridge.  Although I just read a portion of an article online last night that said apples may contain arsenic so maybe the fruit snack was a safer choice?  ;)  I’m just trying to make light of the situation!  Blessings…

Thanks again, Simcha, for being a refreshing breath of fresh air in the Catholic online world.

For those who are unaware, Pope Pius XII did in fact write that all mothers should breastfeed if physically able to do so. He wrote that it is not only the best thing for their babies’ health, but it is also the beginning of a baby’s spiritual development.

Not a moral issue? It most certainly is.  Just like the womb is made for our children, so are our breasts and milk made for them. They are theirs, they have a right to them. It is a serious matter to willfully deprive someone of something that is rightfully theirs. Notice I said *willfully*.  If you can’t breastfeed, then there is no guilt to be had. I suspect it’s not so much guilt but loss that these mothers feel.  However, as the comments here show, there is an inordinate amount of women in the westernized world that “can’t” breastfeed.  What I’d like to get to the bottom of is why? Someone far up thread said it, the multiple, and unrealistic demands on mothers.  Perhaps Advent is just the time to be thinking about this subject. A new life comes into this world and for many mom’s it’s nothing more than another task of her to do list.  When a new baby arrives, the world of that family needs to stop, and come help meet the needs of that helpless infant who comes into to the world hard wired to expect a relationship. A relationship with his mother.  Why aren’t *we* bending over backwards to make that happen?? The order that God gave can’t be ignored so callously. As for bullying, I think that it would be nice if the midwife in question was able to answer to that accusation. Midwife seems an unlikely profession who wants nothing more than to demean people into frightened submission (which is the definition of bullying right?).....Perhaps assuming the best and not the worst is in order?

I found this online written by JPII in 1990 (from EWTN’s website):

http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2FEED.htm

I still don’t see any evidence of either one saying in any authoritative voice that to not breastfeed is immoral?  Perhaps I’m misreading it?  Maybe someone here has more experience in this regard can share some insight?  (We need a priest perhaps??)  I’ll agree they have both said it is to be encouraged and mothers supported and educated about it.

If we know that a baby has a right to his mother, which we do, and that our wombs and breasts are there FOR our children’s good and to nurture them in a variety of ways, which we do, we can know that it is MORAL to give to him what is his. To *willfully* withhold what belongs to someone else is wrong. To what degree there is culpability for it would of course like anything else, vary by person and circumstance. *A woman who is unable for whatever reason has no guilt*. Yet she probably feels it, or feels loss. Which explains this whole thread. You can’t just so flippantly say to women that it doesn’t matter how they feed their children. It’s written in our fibers that we want to be with our children that way. Much like it’s written in us to want to be physically intimate with our husbands. Which is why it is such a shame that people try to make it a non issue. It IS an issue, clearly, or there wouldn’t be 200+ comments here.

And can I say that I wish for all of the ladies above who tried and were unable to breastfeed that you had had more help. A lot of these problems are common and treatable. It’s a shame that we don’t have the woman to woman social structure that we used to where wisdom was passed down through generations. That’s what is lacking here!

It occurs to me that one of the reasons that there are so many western women who have trouble breast feeding or cannot compared to say, third world countries, is that we have so many more sick or delicate babies who live long enough to actually have their first meal.  Many early babies or babies who are born needing surgery are saved here.  But the neonatal intensive care ward is a very difficult place to take up breastfeeding, especially if you are a first timer.  And that is even though they provide every help to nursing moms.  Also there are many more women who have health issues that are able to conceive and bring to term babies who would never had without western medicine.  Also, western medicine, being what it is, can determine whether or not breastfeeding is the optimal choice for any particular child who may be having difficulties.  In other areas, there is no choice.  No choice at all.  The baby breastfeeds or dies.  Or maybe dies anyway.  The same thing can be said about natural childbirth.  It is great when it goes well, but when it doesn’t, thank God for our medical professionals.  But beyond that, it is never a good idea to throw stones at any mother.  We cannot know, or even, guess what their motivations are.  Charity demands that we assume the best intentions for all mothers.

Well, I just spent the morning at the hospital - was sure I was in labor (but I’m not), and my 2-year-old woke up with excruciating neck pain, which turned out to be nothing (but we took her to the doctor too).  I don’t feel bad about closing comments, even if it’s mostly just to get some peace for myself, because we seem to have devolved into more and more forceful repetitions of things that have already been said, so I don’t really see the discussion going anywhere fruitful.  I think the above comment from Susan M. is a great way to end this discussion.