Let's stop making things personal...

Let me just preface this rant with the following: I support breastfeeding. I believe it is a healthy and beautiful way to nurture an infant. I believe that breast milk offers benefits that formula cannot.

That being said, I am SICK of the countless propaganda which guilt women into breastfeeding and imply that women who choose not to breastfeed are unfit mothers. The article linked in the title above goes so far as to say women who don't breastfeed have a higher incidence of NEGLECTING their children because they don't have an intimate bond with their babies. It also says that women who choose to breastfeed are just naturally BETTER mothers, and that they can PERSEVERE through hard times (where, apparently, women who formula feed lack perseverence).

Are you kidding me?

I could write a whole article about the holes in the stated study; but, I'm not writing this for academic purposes. The article stung and insulted me like nothing else I've read. Although the researchers nicely imply that it's possible for formula fed infants not to be neglected, it's clear that this is simply a nicety.

I chose not to breastfeed. Not because I physically couldn't. Not because I adopted. Not because of the other "acceptable" excuses not to breastfeed. I just didn't. No one should need any further explanation - it was my researched, educated, thought-out choice.

Livija is a healthy, thriving, and LOVED little one. I am just as neurotic, perfectionistic, worried, and in love with Livija as any other woman in my mothers groups who breastfeed. We share the same emotions and concerns regardless of how our babies are fed. We have all felt hopeless, we have all felt elated, we have all felt isolated, we have all felt amazed.

Education on the benefits of breastfeeding is great. Let's continue to educate mothers on all of the healthy options available to our children ... not just breastfeeding; but, healthy eating beyond the first year, vaccinations, being aware of the chemicals in our homes, cleaning prodcuts, and toys, and providing an EMOTIONALLY healthy home.

I have just one request - can we embrace each others' decisions instead of making it personal?