Is breastfeeding a moral obligation?

[kamz]

If I can breastfeed my baby but choose not to for whatever reason, would that be considered a sin or immoral since breastfeeding is considered superior over bottle feeding?

Is it wrong or sinful if I choose not to breastfeed my baby even if the reason is not a medical reason?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

The moral obligation is to feed your baby. How you feed your baby, whether by breastfeeding or bottle-feeding, is a matter of prudential judgment. So, while bottle-feeding for the sake of convenience or for some other reason that does not depend on necessity may be imprudent, it is not immoral. Only if a person directly intended to malnourish her child by choosing to bottle-feed rather than breastfeed would there be a moral problem, but the problem would be with the intent to malnourish a child and not with bottle-feeding.

As a side note that may be of interest to Catholic mothers: The well-known breastfeeding advocacy organization known as the La Leche League International was founded by a group of Catholic mothers working in concert with Catholic physicians. The name given to the group, which is Spanish for “The Milk,” comes from a Spanish title given to the Blessed Mother, Our Lady of the Milk and Happy Delivery (Spanish, Nuestra Senora de la Leche y Buen Parto).

Recommended reading:

The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding by the La Leche League
Seven Voices, One Dream by Mary Ann Cahill (scroll)
The LLLove Story by Kaye Lowman (scroll)