"We’d argue that the same could be said of formula feeding."

But nobody does. Women are consistently and sometimes blatantly made to feel like losers and anti-moms for feeding their children formula. And not just by other moms.

Given how fragile I felt during the post partum phase, it was a burden I really didn't need and was the source of a great deal of anguish. However, I will say that learning to ignore the busybodies has turned out to be a valuable skill.

Our experience couldn’t be more different: We have friends and colleagues who hold positions of "serious power." They are doctors, lawyers, sales executives, television producers, writers and government lobbyists -- and they all breastfed for as little and as long as they wanted to -- with careers intact

It's often easier to accommodate breastpumping when you are in a power position. You can find a private place and time or force your company to do so. If you are working an assembly line, or in a fast food restaurant or in most working class jobs - accommodations are few. Some of these women find themselves "downsized" if they take too much time off.

From the article: "We also take issue with Rosin’s suggestion that the decision to breastfeed drives women out of the workforce. Our experience couldn’t be more different: We have friends and colleagues who hold positions of "serious power." They are doctors, lawyers, sales executives, television producers, writers and government lobbyists -- and they all breastfed for as little and as long as they wanted to -- with careers intact."

I'm sure they did. But many of the people I worked with at a travel agency were unable to breastfeed long term because they had to get back to work to continue their jobs. Their families couldn't cope with a long term loss of a second income, so they breast fed for the few weeks of their maternity leave and came back to a workplace with no day care, no facilities for breast pumping, and no possibility of continuing to breast feed. Other women turned in their resignations as soon as their maternity leave was over so they could continue to breast feed.

Women with "serious power" have options that people who hold jobs rather than have careers just don't have. I can believe that choosing to breast feed keeps many women out of the work force, and I can see the current economy causing a decline in long term breast feeding unless some of the stimulus money is used to provide better options for mothers in the work force.

If breast feeding is so much better how do you explain all those healthy children in the 30s 40, 50s 60 when breast feeding was not the "IN thing to do. It seem ore a fad to me that anything.

Times change. My mother got married in 1929, she never breast fed any of her children. It was considered 'low class' at that time to breast feed. Only the poor did it.

I had my children in the mid 60s the new fad the recommedation for doctors was was Simalac. My youngest daughter did have trouble with it. She has ear infections and threw it up. We attributed to the fact she had a difficult birth. I finally took her off Simalac and put her own regular cows milk. She is a very health person. In teh 60s breast feeding became a fad among hippes and comunes. Now it's a fad amoung the new chic.

I love it.

I must say at age 63 my breast are much firmer than those in their 40s who have breast fed. There are some advantages to the bottle.

Everyone should read Jill Lepore's wonderful article from the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/01/19/090119fa_fact_lepore

By pitting women who breast feed against those who bottle feed, we are not discussing how wrong it is that so many women get virtually no guaranteed time off work to care for their newborns. Having one additional month (4 instead of 3, say) can do wonders to facilitate breastfeeding.

Nothing to be ashamed of if you cannot do it for one reason or another - but breastfeeding is measurably better.

And it's easy (no bottles to wash), cheap (formula is expensive), and good. Pumping at work works out pretty darn well, and should be supported as much as smoke breaks for smokers, and you need to do it less often than smokers tend to take a smoke break.

If she's insecure about her choices - she needs to wake up and accept that some women cannot for one reason or another - sometimes even if the reason is merely that it stresses out mother. That's no reason to pretend like the two choices are equal.

is those high power career women advocating for their wage slave sisters/underlings to have the same leave and assured benefits they can count on so they actually have something that resembles the choices said high power people get.

I'm pretty sick of this subject.

The explanation is "averages."

Most kids would still grow up relatively healthy on formula. Formula isn't bad, but breast milk is better.

If there's a nutritional advantage to formula, it hasn't been found.

I'm not sure how you can call something a "fad" that we've had for at least 3 million years of human history--far longer if you count primate or mammalian history. In terms of time scale, formula feeding is the fad. (There are a few more centuries of history of women not feeding their own children, but a child given to a wet nurse or maid was still getting breast milk.)

But at the very least we should remind ourselves of the common denominator here: As mothers, we’re all in uncharted waters and doing the best we can to stay afloat.

Granted, I'm male, so I may not have much insight into the experience of breastfeeding, but what I know is that mothers, especially mothers of newborns, aren't in anything close to uncharted waters. They're in waters that have been charted by mothers, grandmothers, sisters, midwives, and friends since long before recorded history. In addition, it should be worth mentioning that pediatricians are more and more commonly women, and often mothers themselves. In short, no mother should feel like she has to make the decision to breastfeed or not without help and support.

However, one sentiment I heard was that mothers can and should put arguments over breastfeeding aside to work for things all mothers should have, like more family leave to care for their child properly, work opportunities for mothers returning to the workforce after taking time off to care for young children, and alternative work arrangements that allow either parent to care for children while maintaining some income.