i wish you guys would get the “other side” of the parenting/breastfeeding debate. i am so tired of listening to women like rosin and you just keep giving them air time! breastfeeding is the biological norm but because formula is the cultural norm the way we think about the two is all mixed up. next time you have a piece on like this why don’t you contact someone to talk about the other side of the debate? also, just because rosin’s husband doesn’t seem particularly helpful doesn’t mean all dads are like that. my husband takes on a huge amount of work when i am nursing and i don’t feel at all like i bear the burden of the child raising in an unfair way, certainly not because i am nursing.

Thank you for your presentation of the breastfeeding debate. I agree women should not be made to feel guilty about their choice if it is informed, and overall I think the program gave balanced information with one exception: in the discussion about evidence of benefit and questions about whether it is the intimate bonding vs. something in the milk, I heard no mention of protective effect for breast cancer.
I took a course in Cancer Prevention in 1999 at Harvard from noted Australian researcher Graham Colditz. We spent considerable time looking at cumulative small studies showing breast feeding may have a protective effect for breast cancer. While that by itself would be a selfish reason for breatfeeding it is important information for women to have.

We need to stop look at this as an issue of individual choice and start looking at it as a broader societal responsibility to the health of our mothers and babies. The science is clear: breastfeeding is best for mothers and babies. And yet as a society we do almost nothing to support mothers who want to breastfeed: health care providers and hospitals do a poor job of teaching breastfeeding, many workplaces make it difficult or impossible for working moms to breastfeed, it is still taboo to breastfeed in public, formula companies spend millions on advertising, and many women are socially isolated and overwhelmed. No wonder so many women stop breastfeeding. We do nothing to help, and then we shame individual mothers for their choices. Let’s place the responsibility where it belongs–on our entire society, not on individual moms. Only then will we see significant increases in breastfeeding rates, and a decrease in the isolation, pressure, and shame felt by mothers, many of whom do not currently have a real choice.

Of course there is science advocating formula. You can sell it! Children were toilet trained by the age of two for centuries. But with the selling of Pampers there is a ton of “research” advocating waiting until age 3. Don’t breast feed if you don’t want, I do not care – but don’t call these true scientific studies. Look at how little the medical community knows about nutrition in general. Not much.

Amen Annie.

As an Ob-Gyn who enthusiastically breastfed her two children, I have three comments:
First: physicians as a group know very little about breastfeeding. Look to La Leche League or another woman who has breastfed (who may be a doctor or a nurse).
Second: breastfeeding is to the mother-child relationship what sex is to the husband-wife relationship. You don’t actually need to do it, but you lose a lot if you don’t.
Third: breastfeeding is also nature’s way of getting Mom to slow down so she doesn’t get exhausted with everything else she might be doing.
Yes, there are some women who can’t or don’t want to. But let’s not call those of us who support breastfeeding, for all its benefits, Fascists or Nazis.

Hannah Rosin does not take into consideration any of the environmental repercussions of formula feeding. Formula is a product made in a factory from either cow’s milk or soybeans. Both of these require vast amounts of land for pasturing and housing animals or growing and storing crops. Both require transportation from farm to factory, from factory to store, from store to home, and from home to a disposal facility. Both require energy to produce. Both require packaging made from plastics or metals and paper that use up precious resources (some of which are non-renewable), require energy to produce, and end up in landfills or incinerators. Both require heating.
The only positive thing I got from Rosin’s article was a plea not to judge fellow moms. If her article has made readers less judgmental, I applaud it. If it has convinced mothers that breastfeeding isn’t important, then I deplore it.

Rosen’s consideration of breastfeeding’s worth seems to be centered only on the “product,” and ignores the “process.” There is simply no disputing that the product is the optimal source of nutrition for a baby. But consider that the process affords a very intimate relationship between mother and child, a closeness that I’ve yet to see between a bottlefed infant and his mother. I can’t recall seeing a bottlefed baby gazing into his mother’s eyes once he is able to hold his bottle.

Let’s consider attachment. John Bowlby who developed attachment theory, is discussed in a much earlier article in the Atlantic (2/1990): “Bowlby declared that clinging, sucking, and following are all part of the child’s instinctual repertoire, and that the goal of these behaviors is precisely to keep the mother close by.” Breastfeeding assures that all these needs are met, resulting in securely attached children who explore the world with confidence.

Yes, let’s avoid making mothers feel guilty, but let’s never suggest that bottlefeeding is even a close second to breastfeeding.

The issue with Rosin’s article is, not the point she makes, but, rather, the way in which she makes it. No, a person is not evil if they choose not to breastfeed and anyone who is openly rude to that person is wrong, nor should their opinion be of any consequence. Also, many women choose to breastfeed much the way they choose to be pregnant for 9 months—they have decided to have a baby by the natural biological means and what follows is the milk that comes to feed that baby outside of the womb. Rosin’s point about being tied to the baby for at least 6 months while breastfeeding extends much further in either direction between the pregnancy and the post-partum connection a baby has biologically to its mother. A woman can choose to adopt a baby in the same way she can choose to feed a baby with formula.

I am currently a breastfeeding mother, but was formula fed as a baby. My mother chose not to breastfeed without trying. “It was not for me,” she likes to say. Nevertheless, she is extremely supportive of my decision to breastfeed. Rosin makes a point in her article that breastfeeding takes a long time and she sometimes is tapping her foot, eager to finish. When I mentioned this point to my mother, she was outraged. She will be the first to tell you that formula feeding is extremely time consuming, especially when trying to feed a baby like me who was a poor eater. She said it would take her a full hour to feed me just 1 ounce of formula. And, who, she wanted to know, will feed the baby? No, my mother didn’t breastfeed, but she still fed us. Who does Rosin propose to do the feeding anyway, formula or otherwise? Even if dad mixes and feeds the formula, it isn’t necessarily any less time consuming. As parents, when we choose to have children, we must understand that it is a long-term time consuming process, whether we are feeding, changing, or otherwise nurturing our children.

One of the reasons I have personally chosen to breastfeed is because I do not eat many processed foods. Any way you look at it, formula is a processed food. It has to be created in a laboratory. There is nothing wrong with having a healthy protein shake or an energy bar, for example, stocked with nutrients, but it does not come from nature and I choose not to drink them. Likewise, I have chosen to supply my child with a more natural food source.

And lastly, I agree with Rosin that pumping can be a drag. I think, as a society, we have to fight to allow women more time off from work, without consequence, to be able to have the time to feed our babies, with breastmilk or formula, and otherwise care for our children for at least a year (at which point babies do not have to have breastmilk or formula, but can switch to cow’s milk). We have to push for women not to be penalized for choosing to have a family, whether by natural means, adoption, or otherwise. Instead of attacking breastfeeding, Rosin should be attacking our societal support systems.

For those who’d like to work toward a more breastfeeding-friendly society, checkout http://www.blsmeetings.net/owh_call_to_action_on_breastfeeding/index.cfm.The CDC and Dept of Health and Human Services are examining this issue and looking for comments from the public. Follow the link above to add your thoughts.

Having 3 children under 4 years of age, I understand Ms. Rosin’s point that the pressure on women to breastfeed is immense in our society today. And while some may say it is obvious that breastmilk is best, I do think the point Ms. Rosin makes that it may only be a little better shouldn’t be outright dismissed as so many comments here have.

I absolutely agree that we need more support for breastfeeding mothers. It’s beyond me how a store specifically for baby items wouldn’t have an area for Mom’s to feed comfortably; or why I had to pump in the bathroom stall at work. These conditions are inadequate. But that wasn’t the point of the article or story.

The choice to breastfeed should be just that. A choice! And the judgmental attitude about formula feeding in today’s mothering circles is downright oppressive. I for one am very glad that Ms. Rosin has brought this point to light and shown some of the pros and cons to breastfeeding. It’s been too long since someone admitted there could be a con to breastfeeding.

I will be looking forward to more work from Ms. Rosin.

I once heard a well-known pediatrician from the west coast say that the number of studies conducted on human blood far outweighed the number done on breastmilk. He alluded to the reason being that men were more likely to be the researchers … and men had blood (but not breast milk, he left us to surmise).

So, if I had chosen bottle feeding over breastfeeding my babies because there wasn’t enough evidence at the time to convince me, and I later found out it was an inferior choice, what a disservice I would have done to my children, and to myself! No, I “erred” on the side of breastfeeding and I believe my children got the “unproven, undocumented, unscientific” physical and emotional benefits of breastfeeding, regardless of whether or not more complex studies back me up someday.

I’m disappointed in Here and Now and Robin Young for giving this woman any more air time than she has already had. I expect NPR to not be so openly biased in their stories and I felt as though this woman’s position is very one sided. Why couldn’t the story been about the dangers of formula feeding. Is the formula industry funding you too?!! I’m sick and tired of people worrying about making women feeling “guilty” for not nursing their babies. Breastfeeding is no more difficult than parenting and women seem to sign on to do that.