Continuing Breastfeeding Education

Over the weekend I attended a La Leche League area conference. Because it took place at a gorgeous ski and golf resort I convinced my husband and two children to come with me. (Well, they pretty much had no choice because my toddler has never gone that long without nursing, nor would I want to be separated from them all for that long). It really was a win-win situation. Over two days I attended five lectures and a keynote speech while my husband played with the kids, ran around the ski hills, dug in the sand and swam at the pool.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the keynote speakers was Teresa Pitman, a long-time LLL leader and former executive director of LLL of Canada. She is tremendously knowledgeable, an entertaining speaker and a complete hoot! She has the best sense of humor and I was lucky I’d signed up for two of her talks: “Breastfeeding and the High-Risk Mother” and “Attachment and the Older Child.” If you ever get a chance to hear her speak, take advantage of it!

One of my favorite quotes from the weekend came from one of the other keynote speakers, Dr. Jack Newman. He’s a pediatrician and an outspoken opponent of artificial baby milk. In his talk “Bottle-feeding Mentality and Breastfeeding Myths” he shocked us all by saying:

There are no benefits to breastfeeding.

There are risks to formula-feeding.

His point of course is that we’re focused on the wrong thing. Our culture has a bottle-feeding mentality and we need to change our perspective. Breastfeeding should be the norm and bottle-feeding should be singled out.

One of my other favorite quotes came from my husband. We attended a family bonfire and I remarked that I’d never seen so many mothers and fathers wearing slings! He said, “I’ve never seen so many well-adjusted and well-behaved children!” He was right, too! Even hopped up on sugar from the s’mores, the children all made new friends and played peacefully together.