The guilt trip forced on mothers about breast feeding versus bottle feeding is cruel and unnecessary. Bottle fed babies thrive just as well as breast fed babies and have the added advantage of being fed by their father on occasions as well as their mother. It is time that the notion that bottle feeding babies is akin to child abuse should be replaced by a more rational and supportive attitude, especially for those who can't successfully breast-feed and there are a significant number of women in this situation.

Lower socioeconomic status of mother = shorter duration of breastfeeding = bigger profits for the artificial baby milk industry.

Worse, the number of Australian mothers opting to breastfeed continues to fall.

This is not a Third World country and mothers deserve far better recognition and treatment in the workplace and in the community.

My wife called the 'breast is best' fanatics 'the boob nazis'.

The simple fact was, for all her earnest desire to breast feed, she simply could not supply enough for our firstborn son, who was constantly crying because he was constantly hungry. My wife persisted for months, despite the pain and trauma she was going through, because she was incessantly hounded with the admonition that that was what she had to do, and that it would all come all right soon.

In the end, it took a grandparent to put their foot down and say, 'put that baby on a bottle for God's sake, he's hungry!' Our son never looked back.

I think half the problem for bottle-feeding mums is the baby police, who make them feel inadequate. I've known women desperate to breast feed who just couldn't, and felt dreadful about it. In our family, one grandchild in a family of three just wouldn't settle to breastfeeding, but did well on a bottle. Some mothers and/or babies just don't seem cut out for breastfeeding, and we are lucky that good quality formula is available for them. Don't forget that for centuries babies were handed over to a wet nurse, so there is a long history of some mothers not feeding their children.

Norway

" Mothers breast-feed when and where they want: buses, parks, cafes, stores. With rare exceptions, none leave the hospital without breast-feeding or dare ask for infant formula as a substitute. For trouble at home, the phone book obligingly lists a company called Breast-Feeding Help.

Working mothers also get a break: two hours off a day to breast-feed their child at home or in the office. Breast-feeding at the desk is not off limits."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/21/world/norway-leads-industrial-nations-back-to-breast-feeding.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

I note that you do not comment on the several important benefits of breast feeding vs formula, including its positive impact on immune system development. You can read a review here:

Breastfeeding, the Immune Response, and Long-term Health
Kelly M. Jackson, PhD; Andrea M. Nazar, DO
www.jaoa.org/cgi/content/full/106/4/203

You state that "Part of the problem is that motherhood is accused of becoming a patriarchy with male values overlaid upon it. For example the reverence of science over instinct, of experts over the mother's voice..." Get over yourself, scientific experts offer advice based on fact and do not force mothers to comply. Also note that both of these "scientific experts" are female. Spare us the feminist crap.

This topic is the perfect example of why we need to get academics out of our lives.

Some damn fool in his/her ivory tower, pontificating on every simple facet of our lives, is bad for the health.

My wife breast fed 3 kids. The experience was totally different with each one. If she were silly enough to pay more than a passing interest in the advice from the experts, she would have worried her self sick.

Get over yourself, hmmm ... well isn't this what the breastfeeding debate is really about?

It's your fault if you get woken up all night because you choose to breastfeed. It's your fault if you choose to bottle feed because you can't breastfeed. It's the fault of a patriarchal society when women who want to breastfeed feel the pressure to wean to bottle feeding.

I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones as I was able to choose what I wanted to do for my baby and was able to do it. Despite being told that it was my fault that my baby had colic, was wakeful at night, had too much wind, that I was feeding my baby from the wrong position, that I was overfeeding my baby, that I was eating the wrong diet, that I should not have my baby in the bed with me because I may roll over on her and kill her in my sleep - so I was fortunate in being able to defy the pressure and stick to what I believed was right for me and my baby. I breast-fed my first child for 3 years and my second child for nearly 4 years much to the dismay of most people I knew - but this was none of their business anyway.

For me, weaning my children before they were ready was like cutting off the love supply. But this is just my opinion about how I feel and therefore really not open for debate.

If I had not been fortunate enough to be able to breastfeed my children I would have just as lovingly bottlefed as a necessary and equally caring alternative. Whatever the choice, I think it's a fair assumption that most mothers choose with the best intentions for their babies.

dotto, "Despite being told that it was my fault that my baby had colic, was wakeful at night, had too much wind, that I was feeding my baby from the wrong position, that I was overfeeding my baby, that I was eating the wrong diet, that I should not have my baby in the bed with me because I may roll over on her and kill her in my sleep."

That sort of criticism comes from other women and first-time mothers are particularly susceptible to it. Turn off the women's daytime TV, refuse to read women's magazines and spend more time in mixed groups and especially in the company of men. Men are so much more forgiving and practical and feel no need to compete in the motherhood stakes.

It is possible to enjoy mixed gatherings that are not solely made up of the same demographic (mums and kids) and have interests other than sitting around moaning about children. Move to the 'male' end at the bbq, they are there avoiding all of the gossip, needless comparisons and bitching too. Get into crafts, there is relaxation and time to think just doing the mundane. Above all, give the toxic communicators a swerve.

Mothers used to get a lot of support from the extended family, but for some that is not possible. Then there were the local shops, easily reached with a pram. There are many simple, practical steps that government could take like town design and a transport system that cater for the whole community. That shouldn't be difficult but despite the demand for it local and state governments are deaf, apparently.

What would be very helpful would be extension support from a child and maternal welfare agency. Also, it would often be more advantageous to see experienced nurses at clinics rather than doctors. Doctors are there to prescribe but what is more commonly needed is support and advice from a professional with the time to give it.

The breast is best campaign began in the 3rd world where many infants were suffering when mothers were spending scarce resources buying formula and preparing it in unhygienic conditions, often incorrectly, with the inevitable results.

While there are definitely benefits from breast feeding, these are generally overstated in first world countries. The added immunity is small and largely unnecessary in the hygienic homes most of us live in. For many, the major advantage is the bonding with the child.

Unfortunately, there are many women who for various reasons are not as good providers of milk as others, and fixation on breast feeding is harmful for both mother and child.

For these unfortunate few the vociferous breast Nazis who wander around tagging them as "bad mothers" are mindless unfeeling idiots.

The advantages of bottle feeding are that the father and grand parents can get involved, and the mother gets the occasional night off. (in the first 3 months a godsend.)

I am not against breast feeding, but it is not the only right way.

Socioeconomic status and rates of breastfeeding in Australia: evidence from three recent national health surveys
Lisa H Amir and Susan M Donath

"NHSs over a 10-year period indicate that, although overall rates of breastfeeding have remained unchanged between 1995 and 2004–05, the broad figures mask an increasing divide between the highest and lowest socioeconomic groups. Infants in higher socioeconomic groups are more likely to be breastfed than in previous years, but little change has occurred in lower socioeconomic groups.

In general, people with higher incomes are more likely to adopt healthy behaviour such as exercising, eating a healthy diet and quitting smoking. Lower-income families have less capacity to make such changes. Women from lower-income families are less likely to breastfeed for a number of reasons, including less family support for breastfeeding, less ability to seek help with breastfeeding problems, less flexibility with working arrangements, and concerns about breastfeeding in public. Moreover, women in lower SEIFA quintiles are more likely to interact socially with women who are less inclined to breastfeed, such as those who are younger, less educated, overweight/obese or smokers. As formula-fed infants are more likely to become ill and be admitted to hospital, these findings indicate increasing health inequalities in Australian children.

Policymakers need to act on increasing health inequalities.14 Breastfeeding support and promotion in Australia need to focus on groups with low rates of breastfeeding. Peer support programs have been effective in other countries and should be trialled in Australia. Peer support involves women who are similar to the women they are supporting — for example, teenage women supporting teenage women. The Australian Breastfeeding Association provides mother-to-mother support, but as the counsellors tend to be middle-class and are trained to provide breastfeeding advice, they are not peer supporters as generally defined."

http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/189_05_010908/ami11480_fm.html

I was a midwife before I had my own child. I used to get angry when the Nursing Mothers Association staff used to come onto the postnatal wards and harass the new mothers to carry on with breastfeeding when some of them clearly weren't comfortable doing so.

Apart from the problems of terrible cracked and bleeding nipples, and very unsettled babies, some women reported that breastfeeding their babies 'was disgusting'.

There is no point demanding that these women continue breastfeeding, leaving both mother and baby unhappy.

It is far better that these mums should be taught the correct way to bottle feed and how to sterilise their equipment before they go home.

When I became pregnant, I was surprised at the number of women (and some men) who felt the need to tell me I must breastfeed my baby.

When the time came to try to breastfeed my baby, I told all the ward staff to leave me alone unless I asked for help, and that under no circumstances were they to let any of the people from the Nursing Mothers Association in to see me!

I was lucky enough to be able to feed my breast feed my baby for 14 months, but I would never suggest to any other mother that they should not bottle feed a baby if that was what they wanted to do.

Yes suz and cornflower, the number of people who tell you what you should be doing is a big part of the whole judgmental problem. I wanted to breastfeed but I was told by many other women (so I do take your point cornflower) that I should bottle-feed. My best friend wanted to bottle-feed. This is what her mother did and she chose to do the same and had strong reasons for wanting this for her children. Cornflower, I don't watch daytime TV and I'm not planning on joining a craft group, but it was good to be reminded about where most of the "get over yourself" mentality seems to come from in terms of choosing breast over bottle or visa versa. Now ... breastfeeding in public I believe is another matter and it would be interesting to get the men into the conversation on this one to see how their pro or against opinions rate on this topic. You see, you can't remove the subject from the context.

When I read this article I thought that it strangely reflected the whole problem of breast-feeding. Simply that we humans think to much.

It would be a interesting thing to compare rates of breast-feeding problems between cultures. I suspect in this culture we over-complicate things by worrying. I breast-fed for about 6 years (to much information!) and never had a problem other than a touch of mastitis.

I think this was mostly as I was with a bunch of women who just took it as granted that you would breast-feed. Afterall, sheep, horses, camels, etc. do it without to much thought why shouldn't we? I was also studying monkeys (who also do it!) and other cultures especially hunter-gatherer societies at the time at post-graduate level who definately also did it. The problems they experience might be under-reported but it seems not to be a major problem in less western societies.

Anyway breast or bottle-fed, they all grow up to be great noisy teenagers in the end who keep their parents on the hop and nobody can tell the difference between which ones were on the boob or the bottle.

There are few more emotional topics than breastfeeding. How strange that something so natural, evolved for the optimum survival of both milk-producing and milk-fed mammals on this planet, should have become so controversial.
An animal that cannot feed from its mother will die, and the mother's milk supply will dwindle for lack of demand, so nature makes sure that instinct and hormones rule them both by making them a bonded, synchronised pair. Similarly the human mother and baby are both programmed for breastfeeding. If this were not best for both, we wouldn't have evolved that way.

In natural circumstances we don't need to teach mammals how to feed their young. But now zoo-reared monkeys have to be shown videos to learn what should come naturally. Human beings today are living just as unnaturally as they, and we too need education.

One of the major achievements of the Nursing Mothers Association of the 1970s was to educate doctors, midwives and baby health nurses about breastfeeding. It was a national phenomenon that ordinary mothers supporting each other in groups were supplying original research data for medical students' PhDs in lactation and neo-natal care.

These mums learned through hard-won experience that successful breastfeeding depends on confidence. Confidence comes from education: nipple preparation in pregnancy, learning about the supply and demand mechanism (more suckling = more milk) and the many benefits, physical and emotional, that breastfeeding brings to both mother and child. The whole family benefits.

All the hormones and instincts are still here. Today's women can feed their babies. Very, very few cannot. We just need to relax and let them work -- unless we allow our increasingly unnatural lifestyle to interfere. Failure to feed is a failure of our so-called civilisation.

It's sad that for lack of essential education and kindly support, many families will miss a loving and creative, even spiritual experience. Let's not add to that irrecoverable loss by uninformed judgment from either side of the breast v bottle debate.