It's a bloody cover-up, I tell you. The liquid white gold, the Canaan where milk and honey flow. I think like politicians and G.W. Bush's intelligence service, everyone should get things out nicely into the open.

americans are too happy. being the richest nation or whatever makes you guys feel the urge to have to get up in arms about something, anything, otherwise there's nothing interesting to do or think about.

american boredom produces obsessions which to the rest of the world seem ridiculous like with boobies... and heidi montag

personally (as a mom) IMO breast feeding is something special between mother and child...not the world. I have no problem with bonding like that or just simply breast feeding...but not everyone needs to share that moment....JMO

Rockybobby, thanks for your "teats up". I mean "heads up"!!!

who is heidi montag?

Dumb blond cow, big udders and a nice caboose.

I don't know. But since I'm high on coffeine and have an opinion on absolutely everything under the sun, I say that Heidi Montag is the older sister of Hideousi Sonntag and the younger cousin, three times removed, of Dienerstag Haydn.

Am I rightstag?

the lady who performed at the miss universe pageant the other day. you guys' shining example of american musical artistry.

I can't imagine doing it that long with my boys... some do. They say it's a good thing to do up to 2 years. I nursed each of my boys they were about a year.

i nursed my kids everywhere.

a newborn can only go for an hour or so without eating. i'm not taking them in a filthy restroom for lunch, as i wouldn't eat there. i'm not covering their heads if they don't like it...

the benefits of breastmilk are proven and many...it's literally created just for your child, and changes for every age and stage the baby is in.

if i'm out in public, that doesn't mean i won't take a corner booth or somewhere semi-private...for the baby's sake more than anything else. they feed better with less distractions.

i also believe in extended nursing and child-led weaning.

Hold on... is that non-stop? From day one, in one shot, for two or three years straight? The little guy is sure not gonna develop language skills, that's for sure. Spoken language skills.

oh

I never saw a miss universe pagaent and never heard of her. some american I am. hmpf I have to get out more

i only made it with my first exclusively for three months and then for six altogether. i learned from that experience.

my second made it 23 months, and then i had to wean her because i wasn't gaining weight with her sister...

my third i nursed for nine months. as she's asperger's, she couldn't handle the physical contact.

my fourth made it to four and a half.

yea you should. heck, i'm more american that you are . 'scuse me while i go make an apple pie or something

......Depends on if they are serving cookies or not...

Hoo, boy, are you ever right. In my old country you never could think like that, because if you did, you'd get a hundred lashes on the main square.

(That's the "main square" in the town, not "your" main square.)

I had to go look for this

I read it a couple of months ago in Texas Monthly and they still had it up on their site. It was interesting to me, since being a bottle baby, breast feeding is kinda foreign to me


Sarah Bird
Lactation Nation

Nothing can take the fun out of fun bags quite like breast-feeding. Putting the mommy in mommy muffins instantly transforms our hitherto fabulously recreational lady bumpers into no-nonsense, utilitarian dispensers of the Thin White Line, the last best hope for keeping our children from growing up with Joan Crawford intimacy issues and Bubble Boy immune systems.

I was always favorably disposed toward breast-feeding. For my mom, it was an opportunity to sit down with the newest of her six children, put her feet up, and suck down a Falstaff along with a Lucky Strike or two. I liked the idea of these little all-ages happy hours, everyone chilling and slurping down the beverage of his or her choice.

Fast-forward to my first La Leche League meeting, which I attended when I was five months pregnant. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when the phrase “lactose intolerant” took on a whole new meaning. Could it have been when the speaker commanded us, brusque as a dominatrix (Mistress Mammary!), that we had to nurse for the entire first year of our child’s life, even if it meant divorcing ignorant, unsupportive husbands and quitting work? And beer and cigarettes? Might as well sign up for the short bus right now. Perhaps the decisive moment came when the hostess’s sturdy four-year-old son strode up to her, growled, “Nur-nur,” unbuttoned her blouse, and plugged in for a loud, lengthy refill. Which we all then had to honor as the very natural, very sacred experience it was.

When I related my time with the hard-line lactorati to a friend, she told me, “You have to meet Kristine. She will completely change your mind.” Having not even partially changed my mind in far too long, I made a date with Kristine Kovach, known professionally as the Mobile Mama, Austin’s most popular breast-feeding swami.

I met Kovach in the depths of Seton hospital, where she was setting up for class. I can’t say precisely whom I was expecting, but it wasn’t Pebbles Flintstone, whom Kovach, with her headful of sproingy red curls and petite body full of sproingy muscles, resembled. Except that she had five fingers on each hand, as well as a husband, John, an award-winning musician, and two children: a daughter, Ava, 19, and a son, Severin, 15. And she herself was 42—“Elvis’s death age.” Otherwise, she was the spitting image of Pebbles.

The classroom filled up with couples both well-off (husbands checking BlackBerrys, wives sporting expensive blond highlights and French-manicured toenails) and less well-off (dads in hoodies and oversized jeans, moms with tats and tongue studs). All spoke in whispers and had the awkward air of people trying to avoid eye contact in a proctologist’s waiting room. Kovach called the class to order and introduced herself. “I’ve been a lactation consultant for ten years,” she said. “It’s a silly job. When I meet people, they either think it’s some tech job, or, if they do know what lactation consulting is, the guys ask, ‘Do you need an assistant?’ So I just say I’m a spy.

“I’m not here to rip on formula. I’m formula-fed. I’m not retarded. I don’t hate my mom. I’m just here to give information. I’m sure you all have researched the car seat, the crib, and the monitor. Anybody know how much formula costs?”

Lots of shrugs. No guesses.

“Twenty-five dollars a can. If your baby is average and goes through ten cans a month, that’s two hundred fifty dollars. That’s a car payment every month. I saw a formula ad the other day that said, ‘Now even more like breast milk.’ You know what is just like breast milk? Breast milk.”

Kovach’s manner, forthright as a public health nurse, funny as a stand-up, melted embarrassment away, and the group warmed up. She moved on to the obstacles mothers wanting to nurse their infants might face. “My mom told me that breast-feeding was a fad. A fad? I’m sure that Joseph was out trying to find a convenience store open at night to buy some formula for Mary. Still, when I had my daughter, I was certain that I wouldn’t be able to breast-feed. That I was too little, too redheaded, too something. But she was born and drank like a frat boy.”

First-time parents enlarged their vocabularies with terms such as “latch,” “colostrum,” “football hold,” “let down,” and “engorgement.” Knowledge bases were enriched with new wisdom. “Women have two breasts,” she said, “because all mammals have twice as many teats as the average litter and it looks better in a sweater.”

A wispy blonde worried that she was too underendowed to make enough milk for her baby. Kovach replied, “I’ve seen about a thousand moms a year for the past ten years and do you know how many couldn’t make enough milk? Four. Look at me. Obviously I’m not Pamela Anderson. I had two huge babies and I made enough. Saying you won’t be able to make enough milk because your breasts are small is like saying you can’t see well because you have blue eyes.”

A second-time mom groused that her first baby wanted to nurse for ninety minutes at a time. “Yeah,” Kovach observed, “and some people want to have sex three times a day. We don’t always get what we want, and we don’t let ten-pound people make the decisions.”

I braced myself as Kovach moved on to the forbidden-substances list and waited for She Who Knows Breast to give us the party line. Instead she related an anecdote. “I heard of a doctor who told a mom that she would have to pump and dump for five days after she had one drink. I’d like to know where the formula company sent that doctor for a cruise. The rule is, if it’s in the head, it’s in the milk. If you feel drunk, don’t nurse. But nursing is not like being pregnant. You can eat sushi, you can change the cat box. Just don’t eat the cat box. One 6-ounce drink is not going to hurt your baby. In fact, a dark beer might increase your milk volume.”

As the class ended, all I could think was how much I wished I could teleport Kristine Kovach back to that La Leche League meeting. She had completely changed my thinking. I loved every word out of her mouth. My two favorites were “dark” and “beer”—but oh, Kristine, you had me at “engorgement.”

... or go love your Mom.

(Sorry, I did not mean it to be this crude. It just came out this way.)

No,not non stop.... 3 different children, and some years between them.