Milk, in Theory and Practice

[browngirl]

This entry is short, impolitic, and plain, because I lack time and focus to make it eloquent, diplomatic, and pretty. But be that as it may.

gosling has been producing a prodigious quantity of milk, and because she's a generous and wonderful person, she's been sharing it. One of the babies fortunate enough to recieve this is the Joshlet.

And, among the many nifty features of this extremely nifty act, it strikes me that... one of the things I learned by having my life enmeshed with a new mother's is how an idea really shouldn't always be judged by its supporters, because I found a non-negligible minority of the supporters of breastfeeding to be pretty cruel. I suppose this is much more about the propensity of human beings to be cruel in the service of the ideas they want to promote than it is about anything else. [Insert witty analysis here, to be made another day]

Gosling, who is utterly wonderful anyway, isn't promoting breastfeeding by telling mothers who don't breastfeed that they're child abusers, by sending them literature linking formula with bone cancer or whatever, by refusing to talk to them, by figuring out who in their life is the stumnbling block (all tactics I've seen used). She's giving her extra breastmilk to her friends' babies.

And in doing so she's nourishing souls as well as bodies, and being the complete opposite of hurtful or harmful in any way.

So I just thought I'd write about how nifty I find her for doing this. (And ceo for helping her produce all this milk.)

Comments

[ailbhe]

Yes; for example, while I was fighting off a bad lung infection, Linnea got immunity *to that specific infection* from me, so even if the kickstart immune-system-boosters are gone (whatever they're called), specific immunities will still be passed on. This is why it's normally a good idea to keep nursing *while ill* - because it *decreases* the chances of baby getting sick.