I was most interested in the article headlined, 'The battle with the bottle', which appeared in the Agenda section of the Sunday Morning Post, on April 11.
In the article it mentioned that a mother should know instinctively how to breastfeed.
Although breastfeeding is natural it is not instinctive, it is in fact a learned art.
In a society where breastfeeding is the norm a new mother would be able to learn this art from the other mothers.
From her childhood onwards she would have witnessed babies at the breast and so when it came time for her to hold her own baby she would automatically hold the baby in the correct position. Correct positioning can solve a huge number of problems.
In today's society the norm is to bottle feed and if a mother is breastfeeding she usually does it behind a closed door and so a young girl gets no exposure to breastfeeding and thus cannot learn how to do it.
Often a new mother will try to breastfeed by positioning the baby in the way a baby is held when feeding with a bottle.
