Thoughts on the appropriateness of advocating breastfeeding in the wake of Katrina

In times of crisis, we reach for the familiar. With a disaster this large, people often need to approach it from a specific angle, because it's utterly impossible to get one's arms around the entire scope of things. Piece by piece, we all tackle it, and we rely on our own areas of expertise to guide us through something that is terrifying and consuming. We do what we know, because it is all we know how to do until some semblance of normalcy is attained, and because we feel helpless if we do nothing.

The breastfeeding community's centrical response is not unique in the wake of Katrina. Those concerned with animal welfare are strategizing ways to save the pets left behind by evacuating owners. Those concerned with elder care reform are raging about the people who drowned in nursing homes waiting for rescuers who never came - and so on, on it goes.

We do what we know, because it is all we know how to do. And it is far better than doing nothing.

~ Ali