[Mama]

<p>Thank you to my husband who found this amazing story in the New York Times. It's about breastfeeding and a lactation consultant in Brooklyn, NY named Freda Rosenfeld. Click <a href=" http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/nyregion/21freda.html?pagewanted=1&hp">here to read the whole story</a>. And here's an excerpt that puts it all in context:</p>

<p><em>About 74 percent of American mothers tried breast-feeding their newborns in 2006, according to the latest figures from the <a href=" http://www.cdc.gov/">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.</a> That was up from 58 percent in 1985 and 27 percent in 1970. But many struggle to make it work and give up — by three months, a third of infants were exclusively breast-fed in 2006; by six months, 14 percent...</p>

<p>A century ago virtually all American mothers nursed their babies, but by the 1950s, formula was the norm. Then a group of breast-feeding evangelists formed <a href=" http://www.llli.org/">La Leche League</a> to teach what they saw as a lost art, promoting its health and emotional benefits. Their efforts were helped by the natural childbirth movement of the 1970s.</p>

<p>As more women tried nursing, more women had problems nursing, and La Leche volunteers — many of them mothers who found breast-feeding as natural as breathing — could not always solve them. The <a href=" http://www.iblce.org/">International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners</a> was formed in 1985; since then, its exam has been translated into 20 languages and administered in 87 countries (more than 4,000 people took it last year).</p>

<p>Theirs is a beleaguered profession, on the one hand dismissed by doctors like Michel Cohen, a celebrated New York pediatrician who mocked the tongue exercises in his 2004 book “The New Basics,” on the other challenged by uncredentialed freelancers seizing on the demand for breast-feeding advice.</p>

<p>“Some people call themselves consultants simply on the basis that they have two breasts and maybe had a baby,” said Felina Rakowski-Gallagher, who owns the nursing supply store <a href=" http://www.upperbreastside.com/">Upper Breast Side</a>. “The consulting numbers have tripled in terms of people who just put their shingle out there.” </em></p>

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