Lost in the static

Breastfeeding has been big news lately. Between legislation and nurse-ins, celebrity statements and slander, well, it seems that boobs are everywhere.

But I have to say that I'm disappointed in a lot of what I'm hearing and seeing - because the really important messages are getting lost in the noise of everyone shouting. Everyone's focusing on the right to nurse in public, the right to nurse in privacy, the right to bottlefeed and so on. And those are really worthwhile topics for discussion, and I'm glad to hear some reasonable conversations about it.

But while watching a clip of Rosie O'Donnell when she appeared on 'The View' I was really struck by this statement:

"If you want to nurse, you can nurse, and if you don't want to nurse, you don't have to, because it's America!"

But that's not what it's about, folks. This is not a choice between apples and apples - and that's the point.

If you choose not to breastfeed, then that's your choice. But you are entitled to make an informed choice. Sadly, most parents never are given the information necessary to allow them to make such a choice, and it's high time we changed that.

Remember, once we thought smoking was just fine. Hey, in 1942 an advertisement claimed that Kool cigarettes would give extra protection against the common cold; in 1964, a "tobacco industry writer suggests tobacco control advocates have psychiatric certification that they are not suffering from pyrophobia and suppressed fear of the 'big fire' or atom bomb." Big tobacco finally got called onto the carpet, and soon enough the artificial baby milk makers will be held accountable as well.

I'm too tired and so on to say much morethan that at the moment; this has been a long, hard week.

~ Ali

"Everyone knows people who were formula-fed and seem fine, but George Burns' smoking and living a good life to age 100 does not mean that smoking is not a huge health risk. Smoking rates have decreased since the U.S. surgeon general made educating the public about the risks of smoking a public health priority. The dissemination of public health information must be founded on research. The truth is that the risks of not breast-feeding are profound."

- Chele Marmet, Director, Lactation Institute, Los Angeles