Exclusively pumping (Eping) is a viable way to feed a baby. "I had always planned on breastfeeding my son," says Laura Amos of Royal Oak, Mich. "In fact, we never even bought bottles before he was born, because I never expected that nursing might not work out."

Breastfeeding didn't work out for Amos, but she didn't want to feed formula. "It was all very hard to keep up with in the beginning, a newborn baby, washing all the bottles, pumping seven or eight times a day to keep up my supply, and it would have been very easy to switch to formula," Amos says. "But I knew how wonderful the breast milk would be for him, and I was proud that I could provide that even though nursing didn't work out."

Most lactation specialists agree that breast milk is far superior to formula, whether it is delivered from the mother's breast or a bottle. "Is breast milk superior enough to formula to encourage all mothers to provide breast milk in all possible circumstances?" says Sherri Garber Mendelson, international board certified lactation consultant at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center. "The research literature is clearly in strong favor of exclusive breast milk feeding for infant nutrition.

"The benefits of breast milk for both the infant and the mother have been demonstrated repeatedly," she says. "There are certainly additional benefits beyond the breast milk to the infant by feeding directly at the breast. These have to do with bonding, breathing and heart rate organization and regulation and temperature regulation. However, if given the option of breast milk through pumping versus formula, the choice is clearly in favor of pumping to provide infant nutrition."

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