The core of Attachment Parenting is responding with sensitivity.

API recognizes that breastfeeding can be difficult in our society. It is hard to do something different than our family and friends, who are our social network prior to becoming parents, and to find a new support system for our choices. It is hard to navigate new motherhood relatively alone, compared to other cultures where family rallies together to give the mother a “babymoon”—a time when mom and baby can bond uninterrupted while housework and caring for other children are taken up by others in her life. It is hard to make the choice to return to work and then try to integrate a child care provider into our way of parenting. It is hard to pump while away from baby. And it is hard to continue to push through difficulties, whether they be a poor latch or milk supply issues or teething or night waking, when so many others in our lives are trying to convince us to just give a bottle of formula.

But breastfeeding, like any choice made through the lens of Attachment Parenting, is ultimately about responding with sensitivity to our babies (and toddlers). There are great nutritional and health benefits to feeding breastmilk, but what makes breastfeeding special enough for many mothers to continue despite societal pressure and their personal hurdles is that breastfeeding is more than a way to feed their babies—it offers the beginnings of a relationship with their child that cannot be easily replicated another way.

The human mother was designed to breastfeed so that a relationship is borne from the effort—from the mother and her baby learning about each other and what will work or not, from the gaze between each other, from the oxytocin rush each receives, from the gentle discipline necessary in teaching baby not to bite or to eventually night-wean, from the mother finding her balance while caring for her baby, from the mother learning to be flexible as baby grows and needs change. We can find a bit of each of API’s Eight Principles of Parenting within the act of breastfeeding. Breastfeeding behavior is very literally the embodiment of responding with sensitivity to our babies—and responding with sensitivity is a skill and art form that all mothers need no matter their child’s age.

~ Rita Brhel, editor

Managing Editor: Rita Brhel, API Leader

Assistant Editor: Lisa Lord

Guest Editor: Katherine Wilson-Thompson, IBCLC

International Editor: Nat Fialho, API Leader

Advertising Manager: Jennifer Yarbrough

Photography: Jessica Monte, API Leader; Carrie Lapidus

Editorial Review Board: Rivkah Estrin, DONA; Linda Folden Palmer, DC; Samantha Gray, API Leader & API Executive Director; Shoshana Hayman; Jan Hunt, MS; Lisa Lord; Patricia Mackie, MS, LPC, API Leader & API Professional Liaison; Barbara Nicholson, MEd, API Leader & API Cofounder; Lysa Parker, MS, CFLE, API Leader & API Cofounder; Christina Robert, PhD; Judy Sanders; Courtney Sperlazza, MPH

API Coordinating Team: Samantha Gray, API Leader & API Executive Director; Stephanie Petters, API Leader & API Reads Coordinator; Kendrah Nilsestuen, API Leader & API Education & Support Coordinator; Art Yuen, API Leader & API Knowledge Base Coordinator; Rita Brhel, API Leader & API Publications Coordinator; Naomi Davidson, API Leader & API Technology Coordinator

API Editorial Leadership Team: Camille North, API Leader & API Links editor; Courtney Sperlazza, APtly Said editor; Rita Brhel, API Leader, Attached Family editor & Parent Compass editor; Art Yuen, API Leader & Journal of Attachment Parenting editor