Parenting Infants

There is a group of us at work that meet every Monday over lunch for DBT planning.  We each co-teach a Dialectable Behavior Therapy group with the residential units.  We use lunch time on Mondays to plan our groups for the week.  Really I think we like to do this as an excuse to get out of the building.  After we had finished our group planning we began talking about kids.  Since I am the only one of the group that had kids they direct a lot of questions towards me.  Someone brought up that they were listening to NPR this morning about breast milk banks.  She said that what was more astonishing than the fact that there was a breast milk bank was that they charged $250 an ounce for the milk.  The conversation quickly turned to the importance of breast milk for infants.  I offered that I wanted the benefit but admitted that it was a big commitment on my part.  You feel as though the child is attached to you and that you are not able to go anywhere.  I breast fed for my daughter for the first 6 months.  It became too difficult when I went back to work to pump and keep it cold during the day.  Our society today realizes the importance of breast milk and is trying to make it available to others that for one reason or another is not able to provide that for their children.  One of the ladies stated that the NPR spoke with a women who looked into the breast milk bank but found that it was too expensive.  She ended up finding someone from one of her mother's groups that offered her breast milk.  This woman's husband delivered the milk gallons at a time.  I am not sure that this practice is completely socially acceptable.  It still seems strange to breast feed your child into the toddler years.  I know that there are groups of mothers who support this.  However I have been told before that babies have gotten the benefit of breast milk at the very least at the first six months.  My how times have changed.  Someone saw a problem and found a solution for those who were not able to produce it on their own.  It may become more socially acceptable when our children are our age.  We all want what is best for our children.  We want them to be happy and healthy and to assure that they are getting everything they need.