I don't think it does lead people to believe they are poor mothers. My sister has trouble breastfeeding. We come from a family of physicians, and talk about how important it is to breastfeed. We don't look down on her when she isn't producing, but she realizes that when she is, it is extremely important. I know some women don't/can't produce at all, but if you can, it is one of the most important things for your newborn.
Cool, you have an anecdote about 1 woman to the contrary. We can both play that game if you like, my sister-in-law was actively bullied by her midwife when she had her twins and told that if she wanted to be a "good mother", she "needed" to breastfeed. She was producing hardly any milk and the attempts were leaving her in pain that regularly reduced her to tears. She spent a good 6 months worrying constantly that she'd failed the babies in some way because she physically could not do it and for the first few years of her lives every little development was analysed as to whether they would be progressing faster if only she'd been able to.
Google women who can't breastfeed and see how many results you come up with about women who didn't feel supported or weren't sure what they were doing or who worried and felt awful about it. Here's some highlights for you just from the first couple of pages of a very general search.
http://www.psycholog...t-breast-feed-1
The guilt trips and torment imposed by the La Leche League have seemingly no end. To make matters more emotionally difficult for women who can't or don't want to breast-feed, Badinter reports: The husband, a doctor, of one of the League's founders had this to say: "A woman who bottle-feeds is handicapped. She may turn out to be a pretty good mother, but she could have been a lot better mother if she had breastfed."
http://www.telegraph...eally-best.html
And now a small – but increasingly vocal – number of women are speaking up in defence of those who can’t or won’t breastfeed. The Fearless Formula Feeder – tagline: “Standing up for formula feeders… without being a boob about it” – is an online community set up by Suzanne Barston, the American author of Bottled Up, a book about breastfeeding politics. Her website receives 50,000 hits a month and on Facebook her group has more than 7,000 members, all of them sharing their tales of woe at the hands of the “Breastapo”.
http://www.bottlebab...t-breastfeed-2/
You won’t see my crying because I feel less of a human being due to wearing glasses, yet still, as my child was reaching his first birth day, the feelings of inadequacy, because my breasts did not function as I wanted them to, haunted me. Why? Did the way I fed my baby change the type of mother I was to my child? No. I was a great mother because the love I had for him didn’t come from breasts or bottles, that came from my heart. Was he showing any signs of being disadvantaged by my inability to feed him from my breasts? Not that I could see. He was happy, healthy, beautiful and too smart for his own good. I couldn’t be more proud. So why was I feeling so alone, so…… insignificant?
For the mother who wants to breastfeed but can’t it is usually, at the time, the most significant hardship she feels she is facing. It may not be the most significant hardship faced in the world, but in her world it is.
So next time you want to throw around ‘insignificant’ numbers maybe think about how ‘insignificant’ you are making that mother feel.
http://edition.cnn.c...-breastfeeding/
Perhaps most importantly, we need to stop demonizing mothers who can't breastfeed, guilting them into starving their kids with insufficient milk supplies rather than supplementing with formula. Yes, breast-feeding can help prevent SIDS, obesity, childhood leukemia, asthma, and lowered IQ ... but none of those matter if your baby is failing to thrive because of malnutrition.
In Kelly's case, once the baby was admitted to the hospital, she began to use formula, fed through a syringe -- she was told to avoid bottles because the baby would reject the breast. She stuck with formula, her baby gained weight, and today, "she's happy, healthy and fine," Kelly says.
But her guilt and shame continued long after the baby recovered. It wasn't until weeks later, in another doctor's office, that she happened upon an article that calmed her: some women, it said, can't breastfeed, for physical reasons. If only her doctors had read that article, too.
So I'll repeat, all new mothers should be encouraged and supported in their efforts to breastfeed to the full extent that is possible. I fully believe that everyone should at least give it a go but for women who can't or after trying, still feel very uncomfortable about doing it, it is potentially damaging (and is for a lot of women) to say that they "need" to or that it's the "most important thing".