If you have not yet heard the chatter about Hanna Rosin�s article in The Atlantic this month, you will. Called �The Case Against Breast-Feeding,� Rosin examines how nursing became gospel, a measure of committed mothering, and asks whether the science behind the belief that �Breast is Best� is really as definitive as we all seem to believe:
I noticed a 2001 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association open to an article about breast-feeding: �Conclusions: There are inconsistent associations among breastfeeding, its duration, and the risk of being overweight in young children.� Inconsistent? There I was, sitting half-naked in public for the tenth time that day, the hundredth time that month, the millionth time in my life � and the associations were inconsistent? The seed was planted. That night, I did what any sleep-deprived, slightly paranoid mother of a newborn would do. I called my doctor friend for her password to an online medical library, and then sat up and read dozens of studies examining breast-feeding�s association with allergies, obesity, leukemia, mother-infant bonding, intelligence, and all the Dr. Sears highlights.
After a couple of hours, the basic pattern became obvious: the medical literature looks nothing like the popular literature. It shows that breast-feeding is probably, maybe, a little better; but it is far from the stampede of evidence that Sears describes.
Rosin said the response to her article so far was what she had expected � an email box filled with personal stories of women thanking her for writing it, and an internet full of women calling her �a loser, saying I have a bad marriage, telling me I�m a bad mother and saying I�m wrong.�
What does it say about modern mothers, she wonders, that such energy is spent judging how other women feed their children? What are we reflecting about ourselves when we so readily apply the word �selfish� to any Mom who doesn�t do things our way? (And why, while we are at it, is it so wrong for a mother to think of herself � and her job and her marriage � first once in awhile?)
Source
Read More...
[Source: Pregnancy Blog - For All Your Pregnancy Things by PregnancyWeekly]
