LETTERS
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation about breast-feeding duration has not changed so dramatically as was suggested by "What's Good for the Baby May Guilt-Trip the Mother {Second Opinion, December 9}. Previously, they recommended "breast-feed to one year"; currently, they say "breast-feed to at least one year." They present a solid body of evidence supporting the vital importance of breast-feeding to women's and children's health, and its potential impact on health care costs, the environment, maternal job satisfaction and productivity.</br></br>The column missed the forest (the vast improvements in women's lives when this country becomes a truly breast-feeding society) for the trees (the temporary difficulties some women may face in the process).</br></br>As a family physician who believes physicians have a responsibility to provide people with accurate and current data from which they can make informed health decisions, I believe that withholding vital information to spare people feelings of guilt or failure is patronizing at best, negligent at worst.</br></br>Prospective parents need correct information about the crucial infant feeding decision. The AAP has provided it. Let's hope this gives parents the impetus to choose breast-feeding in a decidedly bottle-feeding culture. Alicia Dermet Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Family Medicine, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Old Bridge, N.J.</br></br>Instead of criticizing the Academy of Pediatrics, you should be applauding them and supporting their efforts to educate not only their members but individual families and the business community in this country. Where is your article about the policy statement and what it actually says? Where are your articles about how we as a society could begin to achieve this goal? You could fill a column every week about breast-feeding and how mothers, whether working outside the home or not, are successfully breast-feeding their babies. You could do exposes about how hospitals and health care professionals often sabotage new mothers' efforts to breast-feed their babies. You could write about the many hospitals who do get new mothers off to a good start and employers who provide support to allow new mothers to breast-feed even though they work outside the home.