Saturday, March 7, 2009

How to keep a woman from breastfeeding.

Hee. Remember when I posted the Ten Steps for Baby-Friendly Hospitals? This is like the Anti-Ten Steps.

"Make sure she doesn't call a La Leche League Leader, Lactation Consultant, breastfeeding peer counselor, or anyone else knowledgable about breastfeeding." This is the last rule and in my opinion the most important. Most breastfeeding problems are culturally manufactured (notice I didn't say cultural! A cracked nipple is biological. But having no one to support proper latch-on can cause that problem.)

I've said it before and I'll say it again: breastfeeding is natural, but it doesn't always come naturally. There's this idea that if you can do it with no help it was meant to be, and if not, well, it wasn't, and forget all those breastfeeding nazis and their talk about "instinct". But find me a culture in the world where the majority of women breastfeed without any assistance, advice, or role models. If anything is "unnatural", it's our idea that breastfeeding should occur in a vacuum.

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