The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding

[lightreads]

The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding

Hey, did you guys know that just a single sip of formula is dangerous?

Oh, and! Did you know that mothers who complain about how their babies don't sleep through the night must be bottle feeding, because bottle feeding is so difficult and terrible. But if you breast feed, you can accept multiple night wakings no problem. And if you can't, well, you need an attitude adjustment and then you can greet the new day "with a smile."

Did. You. Know.

Comments

[castiron]

I'm trying to remember whether this was the one that had the anecdote of the pediatrician talking to a group of mothers and saying "if I can get out of bed at midnight for kids' medical emergencies, then you can get up in the middle of the night to breastfeed your own child." My reaction was "yeah, you're getting paid six figures to get up in the middle of the night for strangers' kids; if I decide I want to feed my kid formula so they sleep longer, that's my business".

The whole formula vs. breastmilk thing is yet another example of framing a "generally very good vs. generally extremely good" issue as "always horrible vs. always perfect". If formula were as terrible as these folks say, we'd have evidence in the epidemiology by now.

[lightreads]

Yeah, and at the moment the evidence is trending solidly towards there being only minimal difference between formula and breast milk, and that the differences lie only in the short term (e.g., slightly fewer bouts of digestive upset for bf babies). There's very little credible evidence of any long-term difference for the kid. Though the evidence for the benefits to mom -- like the reduced breast cancer risk -- are still worth considering, probably. There's an interesting chapter on this in Emily Oster's most recent book.