Breastfeeding mothers frequently ask how to know their babies are getting enough milk. The breast is not the bottle, and it is not possible to hold the breast up to the light to see how many ounces or milliliters of milk the baby drank. There are ways to know if baby is satisfied...

Breastfeeding is the natural, physiologic way of feeding infants and young children, and human milk is the milk made specifically for human infants. Breastfeeding should be easy and trouble free for most mothers. A good start helps to ensure breastfeeding is a happy experience for both mother and baby.

Jonathan is now six weeks old. He was born 4 weeks premature and breastfeeding, at first, was challenging. He was just too tired to latch on and suck for very long. The first couple days at the hospital, we supplemented my colostrum with formula.

Human milk contains carbohydrates, proteins, fats, minerals, vitamins and trace elements. So does infant formula. But the bioavailability (the amount of a nutrient that the body can actually absorb) of the nutrients in each fluid differs markedly.

Human milk is produced and delivered to the consumer without any pollution, unnecessary packaging or waste. Most of the focus on the environmental effect of newborns is concentrated on the debate between cloth vs. disposable diapers, but the environmental consequences of formula feeding have far greater impact.

Much rhetoric that exists stating that a newborn instinctively knows how to eat. That's bull! While you are learning to nurse your baby, he's learning the process of nursing. You both will have a learning curve that will be roughest the first initial days and nights of nursing- but you both are still learning.

There are now a multitude of studies that show that mothers and babies should be together, skin to skin (baby naked, not wrapped in a blanket) immediately after birth, as well as later. The baby is happier, the baby's temperature is more stable and more normal...

While my personal belief is that nothing in the world is more natural than breastfeeding, and therefore every nursing mother should feel comfortable pulling her shirt up or off and nursing anywhere at all, I understand that we live in a society where this just isn't possible.