Breast Feeding, Home Birth

A couple of articles that have caught my attention recently - probably because of my "condition," but certainly interesting in their own right:

- Via Judith Warner's excellent blog Domestic Disturbances, the Hannah Rosin article I've been waiting for, The Case Against Breast-Feeding. Full disclosure: when the time comes, I plan to breastfeed. We'll see if it "takes," and I hope it does. But I cannot support anyone who argues at all cost for breastfeeding, particularly at the expense of the mother's needs/concerns/mental health. Because if there is one thing I learned in psych grad school (and it may only be one thing), it is that the studies on which we've based our religion of breastfeeding are fundamentally flawed, because we cannot randomly assign mothers to the breastfeeding or non-breastfeeding category. And that these two categories oftentimes naturally fall along the lines of socioeconomic status. And that the supposed gains in intelligence scores are often little more than the margin of error. And, as Warner and Rosin point out, those who say breastfeeding is "free" (like my mom, who works for WIC) are not taking into account the opportunity cost involved in pumping, pumping, pumping - all day long. (Moo!)

- Controversy-stirring (gotta love NY Magazine, even when you're not living there anymore) article about "new leader of the home birth movement" Cara Muhlhahn, who is willing to oversee home births even for high-risk cases, but is accused by her detractors of, among other things, using St. Vincent's as a dumping ground when cases go awry. Article talks about the nearly viral power of the Ricki Lake documentary The Business of Being Born (which I haven't seen and probably won't be able to, given my geographic location). Also makes you wonder why some of the most "nonconformist," fringey New Yorkers are also some of the herdiest - to the point of risking their newborns' lives. Compare and contrast with, say, the Netherlands, where home birth is neither a trendy elective nor a Big Deal - and they have it down to a science.