[2009] Breasts in Mourning: How Bottle-Feeding Mimics Child Loss in Mothers’ Brains By Jesse Bering  According to a new theory being proposed by University of Albany evolutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup and his colleagues, the decision to bottle-feed is tantamount, in the mother’s psyche, to mourning the loss of the child. At least, that’s how a woman’s body seems to respond to the absence of a suckling infant at its breasts in the wake of a successful childbirth. In a soon-to-be-published article in Medical Hypotheses, the authors argue that bottle-feeding simulates the unsettling ancestral condition of an infant’s death:
    Opting not to breastfeed precludes and/or brings all of the processes involved in lactation to a halt. For most of human evolution the absence or early cessation of breastfeeding would have been occasioned by miscarriage, loss, or death of a child. We contend, therefore, that at the level of her basic biology a mother’s decision to bottle feed unknowingly simulates child loss

[2012 Feb] Breastfeeding - missing the bigger picture by Hilary Butler  The problem with saying that FORMULA feeding is a choice, is that actually, people who feed formula, aren't given a choice.....Breastfeeders are the tiny minority in this country, which is why formula is seen as "normal". ...The reason that most of the 2 - 5% of women, who physically cannot breastfeed, put formula in bottles in this country, is because they have no choice but to put formula in that bottle.  First, at the highest level of the paediatric community in this country there is NO COMMITMENT to educating parents of the necessity to breastfeed babies, or to cater for those who CANNOT.  (Note that word - CANNOT.  Not.... "won't")  High level commitment, could have had led to a smoothly operating, nation-wide breast milk bank  in New Zealand over a decade ago.  Parents should be provided with detailed information on WHY breastfeeding is vital.  Note that word: VITAL - not "optional".

[2011 Aug] Babies forced onto formula feeding because of IV fluids given to their mothers   Bottom line: new research published in BMC's journal International Breastfeeding Journalshows that a newborn's initial weight loss may be simply due to the infant's body regulating its hydration after being exposed to IV fluids prior and during birth.

[1994 Cheraskin] The Myths of Milk Cheraskin,Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, 1994