Excellent blog post addressing the "making moms feel guilty" issue with a bonus call to action!

[annettemarie]

Peaceful Revolution: Motherhood and the $13 Billion Guilt

This was written by Melissa Bartick, co-author of "The Burden of Suboptimal Breastfeeding in the United States" that was published in Pediatrics. I think it does a great job of addressing why breastfeeding advocacy isn't about making women feel guilty.

Yes, I'm a researcher and a physician, but I'm also a mother. Since I live in the United States, you can probably guess what my birth experience was like. Maybe you've heard me on the news saying that moms shouldn't feel guilty. I've been there. So take that guilt and turn it inside out, and do something positive so that other moms don't have to go through what you did. We all deserve better.

[PatioGardener]

Thanks for posting - off to send the link to as many people as I can...

[lrgs]

That was great!

[EricaDoula]

Awesome article!

[tinybutterfly]

Thanks for posting this annettemarie.

[Mama~Love]

Awesome! Thanks Annette!!!

[zwitterion]

I have tears in my eyes reading that. I spent 3 months EPing for my baby girl before we finally got breastfeeding to work. My LC told me it was because my DD had a weak suck, and maybe she did, but SO much of the second birth version rang true for me that it's almost uncanny.

[annettemarie]

I'm so sorry, Deb.

[Pookietooth]

Yes, the second birth is all too common. Would have been nice to see a third birth: a home VBac or something.

[annettemarie]

I agree. And to be fair, I think a lot of births fall somewhere in the middle of the two examples given.

[jesrox]

That was great! I posted it to my facebook!!!

[GandEmama]

Here is a great blog post that was written partially in response to the article.

As someone who has struggled greatly with BFing twins and has become a an advocate for both BFing and greater understanding of bfing challenges I found this blog post to be really well said.

http://sortacrunchy.typepad.com/sort...advocates.html

[annettemarie]

Originally Posted by GandEmama

Here is a great blog post that was written partially in response to the article.

As someone who has struggled greatly with BFing twins and has become a an advocate for both BFing and greater understanding of bfing challenges I found this blog post to be really well said.

http://sortacrunchy.typepad.com/sort...advocates.html

I really liked this, especially the part about every woman having a story and how important it is to listen to the story. I think we often forget how much simply listening can be a form of advocacy and of service.

Kind of sort of unrelated but not really-- this past summer we took about 15 youth group kids to New Orleans for the ELCA Youth Gathering. There were so many neat service assignments-- filling backpacks for school kids, planting gardens, refurbishing instruments for jazz bands, building houses-- and our group was "stuck" at the Mardis Gras museum. The kids seemed really annoyed until the pastor (my hubbie) pointed out how everyone we met there had a story to tell, and how important it was to just be quiet and listen. For the rest of the trip, our group's catch phrase was "Messiah youth serves by listening!"

My (long-winded) point is, I think sometimes that we are so anxious to do, we forget to hear. We need to do more serving by listening.

[phathui5]

I enjoyed her post.

Prenatal education, the birth experience and the hospital staff make a huge difference in breastfeeding success. As a culture, we need to be educating women, all women, about breastfeeding and natural birth long before pregnancy occurs.

[PatioGardener]

Originally Posted by phathui5

As a culture, we need to be educating women, all women, about breastfeeding and natural birth long before pregnancy occurs.

This rings true for me.

I know a family doctor (the most common primary care physician here in Canada) who talks about breastfeeding while doing breast exams (on women of childbearing years). Nothing big, just a reassuring comment that the anatomy looks good for breastfeeding, or she asks the mom if she has any concerns about breastfeeding that the doc could put to rest. Normalizing breastfeeding one annual exam at a time.

[GoBecGo]

Great post! I had a homebirth with DD and i'm eternally grateful for all the stuff i managed to skip by doing so.

I really hate that in the Western world we will spend money on teaching 13 year olds about contraception because it's better for the economy for them not to get pregnant as teens, but we won't teach our young people about pregnancy birth or breastfeeding because that "only" affects their future health and happiness and not the tax $$$$ that can be extracted from them...