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Summary: A fantastic book full of compassion and common sense!
Review: Bottlefeeders have no organized club so it is about time that someone represented our concerns. Women have always experienced problems with lactation. In the old days, we could either hire a wet nurse (if we were rich) or let our babies starve. Now we have a healthy alternative but are shunned if we use it. Thank you Peggy for writing this book.
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Summary: I think that people take feeding much too seriously.
Review: happy bottlefeeding is much better than miserable breastfeeding and vice versa. babies can sense the tension in an unhappy mother. I breastfed my baby, but after 4 months he didn't want to anymore so i had no choice. He would scream forever it seemed when i tryed to put him to my breast. I felt extremely guilty after giving up and bottlefeeding. THe book helped me to feel better, but I didn't like the attack on breastfeeders since I was offered so much help by them.
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Summary: Misplaced "Advice"
Review: What a nasty view of breastfeeding and breastfeeders. Yes, breastfeeders shouldn't condemn, either. Every situation IS different and of course there are those who cannot breast feed. But a world of variation does not change one simple fact: breast feeding, if possible, is best for the baby. Big-company formula recipes do not replicate eons of nature. One wants to ask the author "What exactly do you think breasts are for, and why do they produce milk? Are they the creation of a conspiracy?!" If you cannot breastfeed, take heart, be strong and forge ahead. But don't use this book to attain peace of mind. It's too negative.
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Summary: An interesting book with a unique perspective.
Review: After reading the many reviews here, it just seems to confirm Ms. Robin's points. There is a huge divisiveness amongst moms. This book was necessary. The breastfeeding moms are ranting and raving and condemning and even making webpages devoted to condemning this book. The bottlefeeding moms are relieved to have someone on their side. While Ms. Robin does have some points that I do not wholeheartedly agree with, the comments about the breastfeeding zealots are true. I, too, was a bottlefeeding mom and I felt discrimination and saw many breastfeeding moms look down their nose at my choice. Look on the internet. You will find websites condemning Ms. Robin. On AOL's parenting message boards, you see many of the zealots screeching about Ms. Robin's book. I think that Ms. Robin showed many good points about the breastfeeding culture. Again, I don't agree with everything Ms. Robin wrote, but I did enjoy the book and I felt more support there than I felt amongst breastfeeding mothers. This book will bring to light the war that is raging between mothers and the competition that still goes on to show who the best mommy is. Interesting book!
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Summary: COMPASSION AND UNDERSTANDING AT LAST!!!
Review: Thank you Peggy for a truly inspirational and desperately needed resource for REAL MOMS! These days, there is so much peer pressure for moms to breastfeed that breastfeeding itself takes on a life of its own! Where are the babies? Militant bf moms have lost them! They spend every waking moment priding themselves on THEIR ability to bf, while us REAL MOMS (BOTTLEFEEDERS) spend our time taking pride in our CHILDREN!!! Wouldn't it just be better if moms could feed their children in whatever manner works best for a particular mom/baby couple? What children need most is the nurturing and warmth of a loving family. They need food also but, is the method of giving it to them more important than the love behind it? I have two small children. One was bf and the other was bottlefed. I was unable to bf my first due to complications at birth, yet I love both of my children equally and they are BOTH happy and healthy. This book is a must read for all parents. It presents an objective view of both sides of a delicate topic of the nineties. Thanks Peggy for helping us LOVING bottlefeeders to get out of the closet that the militant bf created.
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Summary: Terrible Misinformation
Review: Such a shame that something as natural as breastfeeding is portrayed in such a negative manner. Her "38 reasons" are a joke, plain and simple.
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Summary: A needed perspective
Review: I recommend this book to ALL mothers--breastfeeding or not. In fact, the militant bf mom is the one who is probably most in need of this book. Why? Because it presents a point of view that needs to be more widely dessiminated. Not every mother can bf (and no mom should have to justify her feeding decisions to the politically correct), and, as Ms. Robin points out, evem when it is possible for a mom to bf, bf is not always the best option. Many of her observations are simply commonsense--if bottlefeeding is so bad, then why is the baby boom generation the healthiest in history? can anyone look at a group of 5 year olds and tell who was bf and who wasn't? How in the world did a feeding choice become a litmus test of maternal virtue and political correctness? As a mom who has been astonished by the ridiculous vehemence of bf militants, I say that this book is long overdue.
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Summary: A poorly researched and written rant
Review: My husband and I both read this book together. I was appalled at the poor research compiled by Ms. Robins, and amazed at how badly the book read. It was not informative, it was argumentative. The topics would start out in an informed manner, but then quickly collapse into either a rant about breastfeeding, or misinformation, or more frightening, incorrect information. My mild mannered husband was moved to shouting at the idiocity of her '38 reasons' since the vast majority of them put the mother's wants before the needs of the child. And that's selfish.Don't waste your money on this book, that's my suggestion.
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Summary: Should get no stars! This book is one sided and insane!
Review: If this isn't the biggest book of misinformation, I don't know what is. This book is by no means a book to support mothers who have to bottlefeed, its the rantings of an angry mother who was unsuccessful in her nursing experience. This book contains the biggest load of breastfeeding fallacies I've ever seen and misrepresents the LLL, breastfeeding advocates and even average nursing families. The "facts" in this book are really fiction as this woman truly is uneducated in breastfeeding and lactation. She'd do better to write a book aimed to educate mothers since 2-3 percent of all new moms cannot breastfeed and many adopted babies or orphaned children might need to be bottlefed. Most "zealots" as the author calls breastfeeding mothers, are aware of instances where one must bottlefeed, but are not so bitter as to write a book of lies and mockery. Perhaps a book by an expert would suit a mom-to-be's needs rather than this all out attack on SAHM's, LLL members, LC's, cloth diaper users and anyone else who doesn't feel formula is just fabulous. I hope no mom to be takes any advice from this book. I do find the book comedic though, the author truly believes her paranoid assumption that nursing mothers belong to a "Militant Breastfeeding Cult" This book is a mass of sweeping generalizations based on questionable instances, the lumping together of breastfeeders as a group of anti-abortion, anti -working anti-male cult is laughable. In short, this book should be titled "A lame attempt to justify a choice I regret but instead blame the world for" or "Bashing Breastfeeding, a childish attack on nursing mothers" I'd recommend Dr. Sears, Sheila Kitzinger, Janet Tamaro or even Dr Seuss over this book.
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Summary: Excellent: A breath of fresh air
Review: In todays politically charged environment it takes courage to stand up against those who have a collective guilt around the issue of breastfeeding. Peggy Robin has done that. Once upon a time women who wanted to nurse were painted as nothing short of child abusers and now the tide has swung to the complete opposite....a total endorsement of nursing, no matter what the situation. there is a climate in which one dare not breath the possibility that there could be something more compelling than nursing for a baby (sane parents perhaps, an end to excruciating pain for another example) Yes she does come accross as a TAD bit angry but so arent most of the women I know who have had to quit nursing for whatever reason who feel absolutely ground down by the current mania surrounding breastfeeding. The reviewer who stated that Ms Robin is "blaming" the wrong people instead of the medical establishment who made bad decisions that led her to stop nursing either did not read carefully enough or is so dog determined to see what she wants to in every case where a woman does not breastfeed that it just did not filter in. She CLEARLY states that she had mastitis and unless I missed something there were NO medical mistakes made...the woman continued to nurse until the pain put her into orbit...dont see any medical mismanagement there....breastfeeding zealots will continue to want to see either the error of the woman or the doctors and refuse to realize that sometimes these things (such as mastitis) just happen no matter what and they refuse to be grateful that we now have an alternative to either watching your child waste away or having to hand him/her over to a wet nurse. I would recommend this book to anyone who has had a problem with nursing and is bullying themselves (or allowing others to do it for them) over it. It is not a bad thing for a woman bringing a child into the world to know that sometimes the best laid plans can go astray and that you are not a heinous mother if they do and/or if you are only human. I also must agree with Ms Robin on the anecdotal observations on breast vs bottle fed children. I too have noticed a lot of exclusively breastfed babies with endless ear infections, despite the promises held out by all the breastfeeding literature. And some bottle fed kids with nary an ill day. It seems with ear infections anyway, its the shape of the eustachian tubes which is TOTALLY hereditary. I have also, as has the author, known kids with tons of allergies, all breastfed. Ditto for just about every other ill supposedly prevented by bf. As a former researcher, I have to say, I too know how to bias a study, and those studies do NOT match up with what i have seen in real life. It is unethical to start with two identical groups of babies and randomly assign them to be breast or bottle fed (not to mention impractical.....) therefore there are always going to be factors that occur in a group predisposed to bottle or breastfeed that may actually be much more influential than the infant feeding (such as the increased likelihood of a bottle feeding mother to smoke and the increased likelihood of a breastfeeding mother to be mindful of far more influential health practices). I wonder if years from now the current zealous mania surrounding breastfeeding will have gone the way of the ultra ultra low cholesterol diet and other extremist health practices that over time have proven that theory does not hold as much water as practical results. Not to say that if it works out breastfeeing is not a rewarding experience but the lengths to which breast feeding advocates recommend people to go to to nurse is ridiculous. This book introduces balance and common sense into the equation.
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