The landmark book about breastfeeding-like a warm conversation with a trusted friend

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Product Description

All parents want the best for their babies, and there’s no doubt about the fact that human milk is the ideal food for human babies. What’s the secret of successful breastfeeding? For almost fifty years mothers who have been in touch with La Leche League have found the kind of information and support they needed to breastfeed their babies.

In this newly revised edition of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, you will learn:

• How human milk offers lifetime benefits for your baby
• How to prepare for breastfeeding during pregnancy
• How to exercise and lose weight safely while nursing
• How to find time for yourself while meeting baby’s needs
• How to increase your milk supply by using herbs and medications
• How to be sure your baby is getting enough to eat

The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding was the first book of its kind, written for mothers by mothers. Over the years, more than two million mothers have turned to it for information and inspiration.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1275 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-25
• Released on: 2004-05-25
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

About the Author
Since 1955 when La LEche League started with seven women in the Chicago suburbs, it has grown into the leading breastfeeding advocacy organization in the world, with more than three thousand groups in fifty countries. La Leche League International regularly holds seminars and workshops for health care professionals and parents, and publishes more than twenty books on child care.

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Customer Reviews

Love this book!
This book was like a Bible to me while breastfeeding my youngest son. I was so thankful to have it. I highly suggest it to anyone who's actually interested in breastfeeding successfully and not just "willing to try".

Could we skip the LLL advertising and the Dr. Sears-worship please???
A relative sent me this book because an older version of it is what she had used with her son 30 years ago. Since it's the first breastfeeding book I've read (although I've read several pamphlets), I was very interested in the more detailed advice you can only get from a book, and some of it is definitely useful. However, I quickly began to notice three very annoying and at times also very disheartening themes:

1) The obvious main purpose of this book is to advertise LLL and get people to join. On virtually every page is a pushy advertising and/or glowing praise of LLL, to the point that I started thinking to myself "Is this group a cult or something?" From the very beginning of the book they give the strong impression that if you do not join an LLL group, you are going to fail at breastfeeding... and if you fail at breastfeeding, you are a horrible mother and are headed for purgatory, so you'd better join LLL so you don't fail! The extreme level of advertising for LLL was VERY surprising to me, and it got really annoying really quickly.

2) Over half of the book appears to be devoted to Dr. Sears and his "attachment parenting" methods. On almost every page is a quote by Dr. Sears. And I keep thinking, wait, this is a BREASTFEEDING book, not a PARENTING book. Why is all this in here? And if you feel you have to give parenting advice, what about giving a more balanced representation of parenting advice instead of just from one guy?

3) They cover only a very limited range of options or scenarios from which to choose and still feel like a good or effective parent. Working is discouraged. Planned weaning is discouraged. Etc. And they kept citing examples of the mothering styles in obscure places like Guam and tribal New Guinea to support their methods, as if those styles are automatically superior to our own culture for some odd, unexplained reason. I certainly don't think America has the corner on parenting and our priorities certainly can tend to be screwy, but they give no evidence that the mothering styles in these remote locations produces better results over the long-term. And of course the biggie: if you for some reason end up having to formula-feed, you just might as well give up parenting and put your baby up for adoption! At least, that's the impression the book gives about formula. I absolutely want to breastfeed, but really, a baby raised on formula will turn out just fine. My husband and I both had to be formula-fed by mothers who had really wanted to breasfeed but could not for very legitimate and serious health reasons, and we are in the genius-IQ level and have extremely successful careers and very close and loving relationships with our parents.

If they had left out all the blatant and frankly obnoxious advertising for LLL and all the extraneous advice on parenting in general, this book would have been half as long and twice as useful. As it is, I was beginning to feel quite stressed out by the time I got halfway through the book and had waded through all the judgmentalism and dogmatic parenting advice.

The last straw for me was the chapter called "Making a Choice" (about going back to work). Especially the quotes by moms who declared they just "couldn't" allow their babies to be cared for by someone else and had grown too attached to their babies, and thus unexpectedly decided to stay home. Gee, it's so lovely that these moms could afford to make that choice. What about those who just can't... or maybe don't want to? And of course there's the little paragraph in this same chapter which claims that if you just sit down and look at your finances, you're likely to realize that the mom doesn't really need to work because the expenses (child care, gas, food, clothes, and taxes on her income) will probably cancel out the income. Ummmmm..... that may be true for a small minority of people!

I haven't even finished the rest of the book because I don't want to feel any more annoyed, stressed out, marketed to or preached at, and I'm going to buy "Nursing Mother's Companion" instead. Or maybe I'll just find a video, which would probably be much more practically useful. LOL

SO HELPFUL!!!
As a first time mom, I found this book to be the only breastfeeding resource that I needed. It was far more helpful than any of the lactation consultants that I saw! It has a very practical and natural approach to nursing and provides many quick and easy suggestions for nursing challenges. At one point I had a breast infection and every other resource said, "see your doctor". Being it was in the middle of the night on a Friday, that was not an option and I was in pain! I used the suggestions in the book and cleared it up on my own quickly. It also is a nice guide to many other similar resources. My "baby" is now 15 months old and I still use it to look things up!