You've brought up some points that are good food for thought. It was a tragedy the day that milk banks were closed in Australia due to the scare with HIV, despite pasteurisation easily killing HIV (I wonder why sperm banks weren't also closed??). I note that a new bank is opening in WA and perhaps one in Melbourne. I wish them success.
The incidence of physiological inability to breastfeed is somewhere in the order of 1 - 2 per 100 women. I don't believe with an incidence at this level that it warrants we guard everything we say to every woman. And then there's that really fascinating topic of 'guilt'.
Can you induce guilt in someone? - maybe, if they really are guilty. However I don't feel guilty about something I have no control over. For example if I had no uterus I wouldn't feel guilty that I'm not adding to Australia's population, no matter how much Mr Howard exhorts me to. If I had no breasts or my breasts were not functional I would not feel guilty that I'm not breastfeeding regardless of how many people told me it was best.
My opinion is that some health professionals don't know how to support women to breastfeed adequately and in covering their own feelings of guilt about this they 'pretend' that it's the mother they are trying not to make feel guilty.
To give you lots of different opinions on guilt and breastfeeding do a google search using those terms.
Have fun
Denise
At 03:23 PM 18/05/2005 +0930, you wrote:
Some food for thought,
What about the women who simply cannot breastfeed and cannot produce enough milk???? The wet nurse is still in existence in many tribal cultures where formulary has no influence. It�s very easy to be passionate about something and sing it�s praises when you have experienced success, but what about those women who don�t succeed despite months of trying and perseverance. I, like all many midwives of course believe that breast is best and should be promoted as optimum nutrition for a baby but sometimes I believe that in trying to get this message across we need to be careful not to make other women lose their �confidence ands fall into the motherhood guilt trap�.
Carina
Denise Fisher, MMP, BN, IBCLC
Health e-Learning
http://www.health-e-learning.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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