As I mentioned in a post a month or so ago my wife went through this with our first born. He wouldn't breastfeed so after almost 2 weeks of frustration we switched to formula and everything was fine after that. But the crap we got from the nurses and others (not the doctor it should be noted) for not breastfeeding still bothers me to this day. I also recall about this time seeing stories about babies dying because they become too dehydrated since they weren't getting fed.

This will not be an ongoing problem in Scotland. With the State demanding control over neo-natal and post-natal care options, Scots' mothers will find it easier to emulate their Continental sisterren.

You theocons have some really strange tastes when it comes to porn. Love the phrase "labile pregnant women", though. Grrrowl.

When I gave birth to my first son, we lived in Santa Cruz, California. Try not breastfeeding there! It wasn't for a lack of trying either, but my son would never latch, and as a result we switched to formula, on which he thrived. You would have thought I was pouring lye down his throat to hear some of the comments thrown at me when a bottle was seen in his mouth.

I completely understand the Scot women being turned off by militant breastfeeders.

It can't happen here?

Breast-feeding must be priority, pediatricians say Monday, February 07, 2005, ,Julie Sevrens Lyons, KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Calling human breast milk "uniquely superior" to infant formula, the American Academy of Pediatrics today released its strongest set of recommendations ever to encourage breast-feeding in America. The new suggestions include urging mothers to sleep close to their babies to facilitate feeding, avoid giving them pacifiers during the early weeks and breast-feed exclusively — no formula, juice or baby food — for six months. . .

They didn't meet our kids. Breeast milk wouldn't hold them and they were drinking formula and eating cereal at four or five mothns. the article also talked about nursing for at least a year. Our kids lost interest after eight months. These people are mad.

BTW I was under the impression that there were no infants in Scotland anyway.

Can't you just throw them out of the house? Can't you 'Just Say No' to the nanny-staters?
Why do people behave like such sheep in the face of authority so clearly over-reaching its proper sphere?

If some nurse or midwife came into my house and tried to browbeat me into not circumcising my son, for example, the only question remaining is whether I would bother to open the front door of my house before I threw them out of it.

No doubt, the pendulum will swing too far this time as well. I believe that breastfeeding became something of a lost art, rarely and poorly taught; I know many women who abandoned it with a first child (who was a difficult nurser), but none who breastfed the first child and not the second.

I was terribly amused, before the birth of my first, when the obstetrician told us, with a perfectly straight face, something to the effect of:

"In the 60s', we believed so-and-so, which was harmful nonsense, though of course better than things were in the 50s'. In the 70s' we believed such-and-such, which was worse. And of course many of the practices of the 80s were just plain wrong.

Fortunately, we now understand how to do things:"

It's not just in pediatrics. The worst part of visiting a dentist is being treated like a stupid child by the dental hygenicist because one's oral care is less than perfect. If it was perfect, you'd be out of a job, stupid!

Breastfeeding can potentially increase the infants IQ 3-5 points, so the government promoting it (in particular to lower IQ populations) is absolutely a sensible policy, and an inexpensive one, in contrast with early childhood education programs which are expensive and provide no lasting benefits.

If "Breastfeeding can potentially increase the infants IQ 3-5 points" then better formula could increase IQ 6-10 points, should we reverse the browbeating settings then?

That's right Ripper. Look if someone wants to use a formula so that they can regain their figure and go nightclubbing quicker than otherwise even though it sentences their child to a lifetime of allergies, illness and apparently (according to Carter) stupidity and someone else wants Breastfeed like a "real" woman, then who am I to be judgemental. Not me. Never hear me browbeat. Their choice, free country.

Same to you Bart. You want somebody to chop away on you son's d*ck, then fine. Won't hear any complaints from me. Let's stop this badgering and bickering, can't we just all get along. (that's what Rodney King said. I think he was given formula, which led to his drug addictions, but I can't be sure)

carter:

that number is certainly a function of who breastfeeds and who doesn't

What possible difference could 3-5 IQ points make in someone's life, even assuming (wrongly) that the tests can measure that difference?

OJ: Admittedly the link isn't conclusive. But promoting breastfeeding is cheap, it makes sense to encourage it until proven otherwise.

David: Ask Daryl Atkins.

Carter, what are you mad at me for? I'm agnostic on the issue of breastfeeding, as I'm more of a leg man. I'll let the wife take the lead. However, it is true that one can never have too many IQ points.

My problem is that Westerners have sheepishly allowed the government to interfere in areas of our lives in which it has no business. The question of whether to breastfeed or circumcise is a decision for parents and parents alone. If my private family physician chooses to browbeat me, that's OK, that's her job to a degree it's why I pay her.

But the nanny state intervenes constantly. Take another issue. Corporal punishment. We all want to prevent abuse but there is no justification for the government to bar people from spanking or exercising other forms of corporal punishment on their children when they deserve it. Yet, in Britain and in Scandanavia and soon in the whole EU it will be illegal. If the experience of my Italian neighbors is any guide, there will have to be a giant fence around Italy because the whole country will have to be imprisoned.

carter:

They don't merely promote it, they try to make women feel evil if they don't.

"The worst part of visiting a dentist is being treated like a stupid child by the dental hygenicist because one's oral care is less than perfect."

Amen! My dentist hired a new one who really bothers me. If we have another session like the last one, there is going to be a life threating situation -- hers; not mine.

Maybe it's just the degenerate in me speaking but it seems to me there are lots worse experiences one can have than being treated like an infant for an hour or so by an attractive girl barely out of her teens.:)