There has been quite the campaign to promote breastfeeding as the best option for newborns and I fully support it.  My wife breastfed all three of our children for more than a year each — no small feat for a woman working fulltime or more and certainly more than most American mothers do.  On the other hand, I certainly understand when a woman — for whatever reason — is unable to breastfeed.  Certainly, “Breast is Best” but that’s not always possible.  But what about when a woman is perfectly capable of breastfeeding but chooses not to?

Such was the case for Kathryn Blundell, deputy editor of Mother and Baby magazine in the UK.  She decided that rather than breastfeed her baby and run the risk having sagging breasts down the line, she was going to give the kid formula.  In fact, she found the whole idea of breastfeeding “creepy.” “Seeing your teeny, tiny, innocent baby latching on where only a lover has been before,” she wrote, “feels, well, a little creepy.”

Blundell goes on to acknowledge the health benefits of breastfeeding for both mother and baby, but says that “even the convenience and supposed health benefits of breast milk couldn’t induce me to stick my nipple in a bawling baby’s mouth.”  For Blundell, it’s more important to keep her breasts (or “fun bags,” as she calls them) perky and to be able to get “tipsy” when she wants to than it is to give her newborn the benefits of breast milk.

Now, I’m not going to fault Mrs. Blundell for her choices; we all make choices that affect our children one way or another, be it the food we eat or the lifestyle we choose or even what classes and activities we enroll our children in.  Is a parent wrong for not signing junior up for violin lessons because they can’t stand the screeching of someone learning to play?  Is it better to work longer hours — and thus see your child less — in order to give them a “better” life, or should parents work as little as possible so as to spend more quality time with the kids?

I’m not a woman, so I certainly can’t see the issue from Mrs. Blundell’s point of view, but I do know that I would gladly sacrifice my sex life for my kids.  But that’s just me.  What do you think?  How far would you go to give your kids the best you could?

Tags: babies, bottles, breast milk, breastfeeding, breastmilk, breasts, formula, newborn, sex

This entry was posted on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 8:00 am and is filed under Breastfeeding, Health, Sex. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.