Breastmilk is the ideal infant food, providing newborns and toddlers alike with everything they need for ideal mental, physical and emotional growth. It is safe, clean, abundant and free. Yet despite this, disappointingly few women choose to breastfeed, and even fewer choose to continue beyond the first months...

But a recent article from the Wall Street Journal reports that guilt is actually good for you. "It really causes us to stand up and take notice and make amends," June Tangney, a psychology professor at George Mason University who specializes in guilt and shame. "It pushes you to do the right thing, to confess, to apologize, to make amends for the problems you've created."

I received an email recently from Kitty Ernst, one of our favorite customers and a faculty member at the Frontier School of Midwifery & Family Nursing in Hyden, KY. She happened to be sitting with a copy of both the first and second editions of my book, If My Mom Were a Platypus: Mammal Babies and Their Mothers. She was comparing the Human birth page in each book and noticed that the tag line, the entire text and the illustration was different between the two editions. She asked us to explain how those changes had come about.

In the first edition of the book, I look at the way 13 mammals in the wild are born and are raised. Then we learn about the 14th mammal – the Human. As I wrote it, being an educated woman who knew a lot about breastfeeding, but not a lot about birth, I began with, But my mom is a human… and I was born in a hospital … with a dozen people there. The text, in the child’s voice, then goes on to talk about how my mom pushed me out and my umbilical cord was cut before I was put on my mom to breastfeed. The illustration shows a man, woman and baby in a clinical room with two medical professionals in the background.

How Good is Breastfeeding, Really?

Human milk contains carbohydrates, proteins, fats, minerals, vitamins and trace elements. So does infant formula. But the bioavailability (the amount of a nutrient that the body can actually absorb) of the nutrients in each fluid differs markedly. For example, human babies can absorb 67% of the calcium in human milk compared to only 25% of the calcium in cow's milk (the foundation of most infant formulas). Similarly, a human infant can absorb up to 50% of the iron in human milk, but only 10% of the iron in cow's milk and just 4% of the iron in iron-fortified formulas. Breastfed babies are rarely iron deficient because of the high lactose and vitamin C levels in human milk that facilitate iron absorption. The concentration of the ingredients also differs. Cow's milk has more phosphorus than human milk. The excess phosphorous leads to decreased absorption and increased excretion of calcium by the formula fed baby-resulting in higher rates of neonatal hypocalcemia (abnormally low levels of calcium) and tetany (e.g., muscle cramps and spasms, marked jitteryness or even convulsive seizures).

How Do Other Mammals Nurse?

There are over 4200 species of mammals on our planet. Mammals are animals that have a backbone, have hair or fur, are warm-blooded and whose females nurse their babies with milk. Each of these milks contains water, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins, cellular content and anti-infective agents. But each species of mammal produces a milk that is qualitatively different than the milk of other species, a milk that is perfectly suited for the growth and development of the offspring of that particular species.

Human milk is produced and delivered to the consumer without any pollution, unnecessary packaging or waste. Most of the focus on the environmental effect of newborns is concentrated on the debate between cloth vs. disposable diapers, but the environmental consequences of formula feeding have far greater impact. Large amounts of water, fuel, paper, glass, plastic and rubber are required in the production, shipping and preparation of formula.

Human milk may be produced without cost…
but that doesn't mean it has no value.

Take Joan Willis of Danville, Virginia. She lost over 200 ounces of frozen pumped breastmilk when a hurricane ripped through town and tore down power lines. "I was just devastated," recalls Willis, "so many hours pumping-only to have it all go bad." Lechia Davis, a local lactation consultant suggested she file a claim under her homeowners insurance policy.

The result: a check for over $400 to compensate her for the loss. "I'd rather have the milk back," says Willis, "but in the meantime, I'm using the check to buy a generator so this never happens again."

"There is no such thing as a baby; there is a baby and someone."
-British psychoanalyst D. E. Winnicott

Ask 10 parents, pediatricians or child psychologists for advice on any childrearing issue and you are likely to get 10 different opinions delivered with great confidence: this way is the right way! If parents handle things in a way different than family, friends, doctors-even strangers-feel is the right way, they are likely to be warned of the dangers of "spoiling" or "harming" their children. Mothers and fathers often don't know who to believe and find that the advice conflicts with what they feel is right for their child.

Why all the confusion? Different ways of parenting (parenting styles) reflect what people value-from authority and obedience to responsiveness and connection. They also reflect different personalities (both children's and parents'), as well as family circumstances. With all the different values, personalities and circumstances to be found among people, it's no wonder we have different parenting styles and lots of conflicting advice on childrearing!

By Dia Michels

They have to keep replacing the seats. Stadiums, opera houses and theaters all across America have found that patrons won't keep coming unless they make room for them - room in the seats, that is. In the United States, obesity is increasing at an epidemic rate. Simply put, Americans are bigger than they've ever been before. 61% of adults in the United States are overweight or obese resulting in increases in heart disease, cancer, diabetes, stroke, arthritis, sleep apnea, depression, even death. Sadly, it is not just adults that are outgrowing their seats. Fully, 20% to 25% of kids are either overweight or at risk of becoming overweight.

So it may not come as a surprise to learn that the one of the US Government's national health objectives for the year 2010 is to reduce the prevalence of obesity. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control recently spelled out four top priorities for curbing the obesity epidemic. These include increasing physical activity, increasing consumption of fruits & vegetables, reducing TV viewing and … increasing rates of breastfeeding.

By Dia Michels
Parents Magazine, June 2005, Pages 127-130

I have been breastfeeding almost continually for the past 15 years. Like all nursing moms, I started immediately after each of my babies was born. But unlike the vast majority of breastfeeding moms-83 percent, to be exact-who quit before their baby's first birthday, I kept offering my milk to my kids, and they kept taking it. It wasn't that I started out with a plan to nurse our kids into their school years, it was just that we saw no reason to stop doing something that was so good for them and I so thoroughly enjoyed.

I don't have a built-in schedule for weaning Mira. But, at 5˝, she's starting to wean herself-which is just as it should be. She still likes to breastfeed from time to time, usually at night when we're cuddling on the sofa or in bed. But I know that pretty soon she will lose interest altogether, just as she has lost interest in a favorite doll or a blanket. When that day comes, I will celebrate that she has moved on to another stage of life and is ready to explore the world at a different level.

For me, breastfeeding has been a beautiful, peaceful and powerful experience-and I think it's the most important thing any mother can do for her kids.