[RavenSong]

To those people who have stated that it should be the expectant mom's responsibility to ask the PAP if she plans to do adoptive breastfeeding, I would like to point out the following. I highly suspect that very few expectant mothers are even aware that this is possible. I know that I didn't know about adoptive breastfeeding until I joined these forums a year and a half ago. And I've worked in the medical field for around 30 years now. I even did a rotation in OB/GYN in the mid-1980's, and I never once heard about it. Maybe it just wasn't being done back then. But my point is that I simply had never heard of this practice until last year. I'm willing to bet most people in our society haven't heard of it either.

When I first saw the threads on adoptive breastfeeding here on the forums, the whole idea kind of made me uneasy. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely believe in the benefits of breastfeeding, especially during the early days when the colostrum comes in. But I just get uneasy about the idea of artificially-induced lactation for some reason.

If this had been available back in 1972, the year I relinquished my son, I don't think I would have wanted his mom to do it. The biological connection to my baby was mine, if that makes any sense. I was giving my beautiful baby boy to them, but my experience in biologically nourishing him in the womb was my very own. I know that probably sounds strange.

If I was an expectant mom in this day and age, I would certainly want to know if the potential amom planned on breastfeeding. If I didn't know anything about how it worked or the nutritional value, I would want it explained to me. Knowledge is a wonderful thing. Something that seems "icky" to me might not be so "icky" if I was educated about the benefits and advantages.

I have a sneaking suspicion that part of the "ickiness factor" might lie in some hard-wired biological reaction. I know that historically many women of the upper class used wet nurses for their babies. But still...I wonder if perhaps nature instilled some type of instinct into mothers who have just given birth to not want other women to nurse their babies.

It's so hard in the beginning when an expectant mom becomes a birthmom. Your maternal instinct is still raging, but you try to ignore it. You know that your child has a new mother. But your milk is still coming in several times a day. And every time your breasts start leaking milk, you wonder if your baby is hungry. It's hard...

One last thing I'd like to say is, please, if you are going to BF your child in the hospital, you must tell his bmom. Most states don't even allow relinquishment papers to be signed until after the bmom is discharged from the hospital. Until TPR is signed, she is still the baby's mom. I cannot even imagine how very difficult it would be for a young woman who has just delivered her baby after carrying him for nine months to know that another woman is breastfeeding him just down the hallway. It's hard enough during this precious time period to say both hello and goodbye to her child. She needs this time for the two of them....