I have to agree with just about everything Lori wrote. And I am astonished at her determination to continue breastfeeding, given the pain and the difficulties. I worked through it on my own within a few weeks, but if I hadn't, I would not have continued for 7 months. Further, anyone who is not also nursing may not really appreciate how a woman feels (exhaustion, hormones, anxiety, etc.) trying to work through those first few weeks of adapting to being a source of nourishment. And if she's not successful then, whose fault is that? My guess is... not hers. Not when we live in a world that does its level best to force women to breed (and now be pre-pregnant?!) without also providing the structure, support and old-wives' knowledge that she needs when she does choose to have a baby.

When I was nursing my daughter (just about 30 yrs ago!) the social pressures were both opposite and the same. The same was that no one wanted to see you breastfeed your baby. That has not changed. Even my then-husband was against the whole thing. He was worried about what would happen to my figure. [sheesh! It's perfectly fine even now, thank you!] We ended up separating before she was a year old, and I was still breastfeeding.

What was opposite was trying to get any support to breastfeed when the pediatric nurses who I explicitly asked not to feed my daughter sugar water in the nursery (they only let us have them a few hours at a time then), did anyway. There were no lactation consultants, and few nurses with much breastfeeding experience, and no one to give me a heads-up about engorgement or what to do about it. I even hid my food supplements in the night-table drawer in the hospital. [Those were also the days when I would have been one of a very few non-smokers, too, at any social event. Times can change for the better, I keep reminding myself.]

Having been breastfed, though, I was determined & stubborn, and was reading Adele Davis. So, I hung in there. I was also pretty young. Early 20's.

I hadn't planned to go right back to work, but had to before my daughter reached six months. I was fortunate that my sister was visiting then and would bring her to me at lunch time for a feeding, for a week or two. At six months, when you can start introducing solid foods, it gets a little easier. Then, I mixed up my own formula (Adele Davis again), and she would get a bottle or two during the day when I was working, but could nurse morning and night. Gradually, it became only night. Pumps?! No way... they didn't really exist then, except for those silly, little plastic things that looked like some kind of kitchen tool. And they really hurt.

I don't know what I would have done if I'd had to go back to work any earlier, or if my sister had not been there to help out. I was pretty determined, but determination only carries you so far. Eventually, Reality bites.

Didn't Salon have a story not long ago about a company that allowed/encouraged its employees to bring their infants to work until 6 or 9 months? That could work for some women in office situations, but as Lori writes, what about all of the women with other kinds of jobs? Their children need them, too.

About that same time, I was doing a little surfing while writing up a post about my reaction to the Elizabeth Vargas story. My bottom line was that more women should be nursing in public. Period. That we would know things had finally changed when a news anchor or executive could read the news or attend a meeting while nursing a baby. I found a link that also suggested that part of the problem is that not enough women nurse in public, denying other women their best opportunity-- personal observation-- for becoming comfortable and knowledgeable about how to hold and nurse a baby so that it can latch on.

http://www.rebeccaglover.com.au/

http://lyssa-strada.blogspot.com/2006/05/what-it-will-take-perhaps-more.html

[sigh]

Helen Thomas is unique. She is a journalist.

Thank you, Broadsheet, for this post... else I would have missed it completely, since I don't usually read Elle. (Maybe I should.) I'll look for it when I'm out and about this weekend.

Don't ignore Ann Coulter. Make her the spokes-model for the right wing of the GOP and Bush's base, many of whom really do love her.

You have only to read the comment threads of the posts of conservative bloggers who have dared to criticize her to see that this is true. Her defenders outnumber her critics nearly every time.

We couldn't shut her down anyway; so make her own people either continue to defend her or else shut her down themselves. That's how it really should be done... at both ends of the political spectrum: police your own.

And if anyone has an inside track to Bill Maher, ask him if he had it to do all over again, would he still have given her so much air time on Politically Incorrect? That's where she got a lot of exposure to some of her current fan base.