The XX Factor: What women really think.

Breast-Feeding Gets Us Where We Are Vulnerable

Ann, here is my best guess about the success of the breast-feeding brigade. Some of it is because of external forces, and some is our own inner craziness. The researchers who helped the American Academy of Pediatrics craft its rigid pro-breast-feeding statement came of age during the '70s. They watched formula companies peddle their product in Africa, where the dirty water turned out to be fatal to babies. They also watched hospitals routinely inject mothers with hormones to stop the flow of milk. To them, this is a war, and there's no middle ground.

Now, why do they have a receptive audience? Breast-feeding gets us where we are vulnerable; if you are a working mother, it's the one thing you can do that your nanny can't. Also, it fits in perfectly with this current moment in parenting, where the child is an improvement project, and no amount of tinkering is too much. It is an odd thing, of course,  that this intensive form of parenting thrives at exactly the historical moment when women have the least time for it. I'm sure you could shed light on that conundrum, Ann.

I also think the green/farmer's market obsession has something to do with this. Feminists chucked natural childbirth without much guilt long ago, but breast-feeding is riding the tails of  the organic food movement. If they could only find a way to make formula look less like Hi-C and smell less like an old tire, we'd be golden.