I think I'll stick with Kelly's advice in another thread, no one should be anti anything but pro what they believe in!

I am saddened that there isn't enough support and help for women out there who are having difficulties with bf, because I think if you asked b4 their babies were born, the majority of women do want to bf.

In my case, the bf class our hospital ran, the help from the LC there, advice on BB and the ABA all added up to successful bf thus far. Without those, I don't know what I would have done when I encountered problems with mastitis twice. It's a shame that these same resources aren't available to everyone.

I find it interesting that the govt feels its entirely appropriate to fund an anti-abortion pregnancy advice hotline (without advertising it as such) and yet doesn't do more to help out the ABA. (Yes, I know, two completely different things, but it really got my goat when I read in the paper this week about that hotline not stating its position up-front!) If there really are adverse health affects from ff (and I agree that this article doesn't give much solid research on this) then surely the govt could do more to help out bf mothers. It'd be a better thing for our over-stretched health system in the long run.

I don't remember if it was mentioned in this article or not, but it has also struck me that most children's picture books and a lot of parents rooms signs, etc all have images of mothers bottle-feeding babies, never bf them. (I think the ABA has taken this point up.) I find that a little sad, so I'm making sure that DP takes some photos of me bf Lucy so that when she's older she'll see that this is how she was fed as a baby. I always remember a photo of Mum bf me when I was a toddler and I wonder how much of an effect that has had on my desire to bf.

Just out of interest, Kelly, do you know if there's anything out there about whether there's any effect on a woman bf if she and her siblings were bf by their mother or not? Just wondered if seeing your Mum bf younger siblings had an environmental effect or not.

Anyway, at the end of the day I'm pro-postive parenting. I know mothers who do a fantastic job and it doesn't have anything to do with the way they fed their children as infants.

Although don't get me started on feeding kids too much junk food when they're older...!