I am a big advocate and supporter of breastfeeding, but I would never ever in a million years dream of saying that to a mom who tried and couldn’t. Anyone I have ever met who tried and ended up formula feeding already felt awful about it, or had felt sad and struggled to work past that feeling.

What good does it do anyone to rub salt in the wound? I would LOVE to see higher rates of breastfeeding as much as anybody, but not at the cost of treating women who couldn’t in such a way. Disgraceful.

Although that was definitely an inappropriate way to say it, I’m willing to be that the mother probably could have explored the many help options to up her supply, since a low supply/being truly unable to breastfeed is quite rare. The OB should have told the mom about fenugreek and reglan and ways to increase supply or relactate, not judge.

and this is what gives “lactivists” a bad name.

Note to OB: There are tactful ways to offer advice to a mom who might not have tried everything possible to continue breastfeeding, especially if she really wants to keep going but mistakenly thinks she can’t. None of those ways ever involve the word “lazy.” It’s also tactful to keep your big, fat mouth shut and give the mom the benefit of the doubt that she DID try everything possible and really, genuinely CAN’T. If you can’t figure out the former, please try the latter.

I’m all for nursing as long as possible. I nursed my daughter to about 20 months, then quit because I was pregnant and it was getting painful–and she was only nursing once a day by then anyhow. With my son, I went 12 months, but only because he has a ton of allergies and I couldn’t stay on his diet any longer.

But my mom had to supplement me at 3 months and my brother by 6 weeks, because she just didn’t produce enough. I was borderline failure to thrive, and my brother might have been too if she hadn’t supplemented. There IS such a thing as insufficient milk supply!