I agree that a lot of it is perception – for me, nursing was not really an option and it would have taken an *enormous* amount to get me to give up on it. I knew people who gave up on it for stuff my kids did that I didn’t even view as a problem (frequent feedings). It’s all a matter of how you view it.

I had Dr. Jack Newman release my son’s tongue tie in 2008 – later I was talking to one of his co-authors, Teresa Pitman about how tongue ties seem really common right now. She said that he did a trip to Africa to work with mom’s there, and that in a rather isolated tribe he found that tongue ties were not that rare. What he found was that women there – who didn’t have formula as an option, and had tongue tied children – nursed anyway. Some women had deformed nipples from years of ‘improper sucking’, but this was not an issue of guilt, or a reason to quit – it was just a fact of life.

Our exposure to a choice (despite the fact that the choice is not as healthy, and potentially damaging) does feed women the idea that if breastfeeding was right it would never be hard. I know that is something I wondered about (although I DO believe that it is better…). What I was able to connect was that a lot of things are better – like exercise, that aren’t easy.

I have had considerable issues with my various children. I no longer view those as problems, but instead as difficulties, and when you overcome those difficulties you can be satisfied that you accomplished something significant, and you and your child are better for it…