“Give women balanced info about BOTH breast and bottle feeding with no hard sell or scare stories. Then respect the decision they make.”

This is more difficult than it sounds because the argument is not balanced - it IS heavily weighted in favour of breastfeeding. So when you provide research-based information about ALL the advantages and disadvantages of both methods, without any comment of your own, it still seems as if you are being biased. To avoid this appearance of bias some antenatal teachers *doctor* the evidence to make it appear balanced.
Kim Wildner presents a good chapter on this in her book, “Mother’s Intention : How Belief Shapes Birth”.

She writes, “Let us look at “balanced” first.”to make two parts exactly equal.” What if the two parts are not equal? What if a parent will be making decisions that will affect her and her baby with both short and long
term consequences. Is it fair to distort reality so that the information she has to choose from seems ‘equal’, even though it really isn’t? Why would a parent want information that appears balanced, but isn’t
factual?”

This is a dilemma many midwives and childbirth educators have to grapple with. It takes a brave person to state an unpalatable truth about an issue calmly and clearly - but not to do so, is to collude with the
untruth.

However it is quite possible to state the truth but remain non-judgemental, and sympathetic to the social mores that make a radical change in behaviour so difficult.