Epacaris - I loved the bovine milk... Very quirky!

Firstly BW I now do remember your breast milkstory - I am sorry in all honesty I often and I don't know why this is... Get you mixed up wth BG and this is what happened. My sincere apologies if I upset you in any way.

LR - my experience has been different. Breastfeeding and birth have always been huge topics in playgroups, homebirth meets and ABA meetings. So, it's certainly been an issue (sharing human milk) that's been discussed.

BG I understand that friends may not be feeding - but joining a group like ABA or even just a first mothers group the discussion can be broached. Education and change happens with us first.

My whole point is that we need to build Villages that don't think feeding a baby human milk from a donor is wierd. Remember in our mothers "day" having a baby in a tub of water would have likely incurred a stint in a psychiatric facility (at least for mine - my mother is almost 70 - I forget I am an "old bird"). We have to remember that a large proportionof our mothers did not feed at the breast as it was "too sexual"... My husbands's mother with all the very best intentions in the world on a doctors suggestion fed him vitamized steak at 6 weeks old!

We cannot afford - especially at this crucial time in human evolution to just say why we can't. For it's yin and yang. For every can't there is a can.

Being courageous in our beliefs but always kind and compassionate in our stand is imperative. The amount of women feeding their babies human milk (thanks Epacaris!) at 6 months is shockingly low... MantaRay and Barb may know the recent stats - if I rattle out what I believe it to be I may embarass myself further!
There is outrageously negligent support for breastfeeding mothers - in fact for mothers post birth. We are expected to birth our babies under fluroescent lights, often drugged - or in an OT. We are told to 'get up an at em". We go home and continue on struggling to fit this new person into our homes. Our bodies are sore, our hormones raging - the demands are huge. It is an impossible situation and it's shocking that so many of us get through it without a major crisis... We don't many don't get through it without giving up on BF. NOT because we are not great mothers but because we need nurturingin that first 6-12 weeks. We need to think about breasts and baby - we need a VILLAGE.

How many of you had meals arrive on your doorstep after the births of your babies? If you didn't it's not because no body cared - it's because our lives are too busy to build comunity and because we now have a generation of people that are so overloaded we can only focus on what's going on in our yard.

The change happens when we know a new baby has been born - we take a meal. We don't have baby showers we have Blessing Ways - the formation of a group of women who will watch over the mother and her child in the post partum period.

If we don't change the way our society functions our daughters and sons are going to be in a sorry state.

I have that community - not because I am any more special - but because I work at it. My kids know that when a baby is born we arrive with food. Not flowers (tho these may be optional!) Whenever someone is sick - we arrange a food roster, mowing roster, school drop offs. We need to epand our thinking.

It is awkward to say "do you want some of my milk" - say it 3 time and it's not awkward any more. That tin of formula is the best solution in the middle of a dark night when a mother is so tired her body shakes, her nipples are so cracked that the baby chucks up blood streaks and her body still hurts from her birthing. That tin looms large because we have been told it's healthy, sterile and "screened". Many women buy formula and bottles prior to birthing their babies "just in case". The marketers are doing their job well. The newborn cries a lot, fusses at the breast, has difficulty attatching - the CHN suggests a bottle - or your MIL does or your sister or friend. We are talking marketing that plays at our heart strings - because we will do ANYTHING for this new little person.

This thread is far more than EBM and would you donate. It's about how we can support mothers so that they have the best possible chance of feeding their babies at their breast or break down the barriers and feed them someone elses.

For goodness sake we suck in on average 1.5 litres of bovine milk or it's products on average daily... The bodily fluid of a rather smelly beast. We baulk at feeding our children the milk of another human... Think about it.

We cannot continue living insular lives. This thread attests that hter are many women with likeminded views in the relatively small community of BB. There ARE women in your towns and suburbs who have these values - they just have to be found.