But why, why do you think formula is, like, the F word that people just freak out about?

[laughs] Yeah.

I think, I think we all internalize, or it's easy, rather, to internalize a lot of the messaging that we hear from our OBs and our pediatricians and from the internet and social media and our in-laws and our friends.

And we've seen a big swing in the last, you know, 10, 15, even 20 years, where, you know, formula was really normalized in the '80s and '90s.

And then in the early 2000s and into 2010, we saw this big push for breast is best and baby-friendly hospitals.

And I think, uh, encouraging people, educating people about the benefits of breast milk is great.

Giving people who want to breastfeed support is exactly what we need.

... of not breastfeeding sometimes is never talked about openly.

or

That's probably not a great source of information.

And for me, a big piece of getting over the guilt was doing some of the high quality research, looking at the high quality research about what the benefits of breast milk actually are and what the, you know, quote unquote risks of formula feeding actually are.

And helping me understand that the narrative that I had been told from the internet, from some of my medical providers, from folks in my life, about the superiority of breast milk and the, you know, poisonousness of formula was just not factually true.

And it was really crucial for me to do that research and to learn things like, you know, you'll read the statistics and it'll say formula fed babies are twice as likely to get an ear infection.

And that feels terrible, right? You're like, oh my gosh, I don't want my baby to be twice as likely to get an ear infection.

But nobody tells you that that risk has increased from 2% to 4%.

And it really comes down to that mother or parent deciding, how am I going to navigate this for my entire parenting journey?