BY FAITH MOORE FEBRUARY 8, 2016

…My son did eventually latch and I diligently plugged him in every two hours day and night. I was exhausted and struggling to recover from my C-section. Allowing my husband to feed him a bottle every now and then would have given me a few precious hours of sleep. But I remembered my training. The lactation consultant who had taught my breastfeeding class had warned us that, if we let the baby drink from a bottle before he was six weeks old, he would never truly learn to breastfeed. This, of course, would mean that he would become obese, fail in school, and be incarcerated by the age of two. The implication was clear: only a terrible mother would take the easy way out.

And then I got sick. One month after my baby was born I was hospitalized with a serious C-section related infection. My son had to stay home with my husband and, in order for him to eat, he had to have formula. From a bottle. I knew there was nothing I could do about that but I was determined not to lose my milk supply. I hooked myself up to the breast pump every three hours, day and night, for the week that I was there. To some, this may seem like a valiant effort to do what was best for my son. But to me, in retrospect, it seems reckless. My health was in serious peril and I was giving up precious rest that might have helped me get better quicker in order to maintain a lifestyle choice.