Greetings all!

Rachel wrote

>I think it's great that you breast fed, carried your baby close to you, and
>were so conscientious. I wish more moms were....

I've been thinking about this a lot.  Maddy, loved your post on this.  You
cover two important areas in your references to breast feeding; the physical
and the emotional.

First, the physical.  References have been made to orthodontics.  I did a
little math.  This is by no means a scientific poll, but try this yourself.
I was not breast fed.  I needed braces.  My parents and thier siblings were
and they all have perfect teeth.  My best friend, Elsa, and her siblings
were breast fed and they all have perfectly aligned teeth, too.  Whoa.  I
would LOVE to see a study on this, but that ain't gonna happen; it may well
put orthdontists out of business.

On to emotions.  I was adopted.  Mom and Dad loved me to pieces, but I was
not thier little angel until three weeks of age.  We'll never know for sure,
but I'm willing to bet I spent less time in loving arms and more time in an
incubator than the other infants around me.  And I, too, am bipolar.  Or
was.  Thankfully, my diagnosis was the lesser of the levels and mood swings
are a thing of the past, thank God.

This may be a stretch, but what happens to babies born in hospitals these
days?  I could be wrong, but it seems they spend a lot of time in
incubators.  And look at all the preemies that must be kept in incubators to
survive, many for a very long time.  I wonder; of all the children diagnosed
with ADD or any other mental/emotional illness, how many were premature or
spent more time in an incubator then their mother or father's arms?  Makes
you wonder, doesn't it?

The farther humans advance, the farther we stray from our natural
environment.  Computers, phones and cars are all wonderful inventions.  But
women who breast feed in public raise eyebrows.  Sad, indeed.  In fact, I
once heard of a lawmaker who wanted to outlaw public breast feeding.  I'm
not kidding!  God help the person who finds breast feeding offensive.  It's
nurturing, loving, natural, beautiful.  Sweet Jesus, it's the way things
ought to be!  Anyone who thinks public breast feeding is rude or offensive
can... well, use your imagination.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  In short, Western civilization is so
busy keeping up with the Joneses that 99% of us miss the whole damn boat!
And THAT, in my humble opnion, is de-evolution.

Dori Zook
Denver, CO