Bosom Buddies

Breast Feeding

Everyone agrees that breast is best when it comes to feeding
babies. But what does it take for a woman to decide to breast-feed her
baby?

The biggest influence is her husband or boyfriend. But until
pediatrician Gary Freed became an expectant father, no one thought to
examine men's attitudes toward breast-feeding. "No one knows what dads
think," declares an incredulous Freed, assistant professor of pediatrics
and health policy at the University of North Carolina.

So he studied 268 men attending prenatal classes with their
partners. What most distinguished the 58 percent of women who planned to
breast-feed from the 42 percent who didn't was the attitude of their
husbands.

"The partners of the formula moms didn't know breast-feeding was
good for their kids," says Freed. And they subscribed to assorted myths
and misconceptions: that breast-feeding is bad for the breasts, that it
makes breasts ugly. They also thought it would interfere with sex.

Partners of the breast-feeders, by contrast, believed
breast-feeding would abet mother-infant bonding, they believed it would
protect their infants against disease, and they were more likely to have
added respect for their partner if she breast-fed. Interestingly, Freed
reports in Pediatrics, both groups of men felt breast-feeding in public
was not acceptable.

"Men are not such big clods as we think they are. We demand that
they be supportive -- but we exclude them from the education process"
writes Freed. He speaks from experience: "My wife and I attended prenatal
education classes, but only she was offered classes about breast-feeding.
I signed up, too; and they all thought I was a sex pervert with a breast
fixation. Even though I'm a pediatrician, I needed to know more."

Freed believes that men should be given prenatal classes in
breast-feeding. "It will conquer their myths and misperceptions." And
help to stem the ten-year decline in breast-feeding among American women.
He would not exempt his colleagues from such an education. "Physician
support is also important for breast-feeding women. No one should give
women bad information."