Why Don't Young Women Breastfeed?

I took a baby care class with my wife before Clark was born. There were about 10 couples in the class. Nine of the mothers in the class had chosen to breastfeed. Only one mother had chosen to forgo the breastfeeding entirely and go with formula. She was the youngest mother in the class by far (perhaps in her very early twenties at the oldest). I recently stumbled upon an MTV show entitled "16 and Pregnant". The mothers in the episodes I watched all fed their babies formula.

Once you get into prenatal health care and baby classes you are inundated with information on why breast milk is the best thing in the world for your baby. It is this golden serum that remedies everything from orthodontic problems, to allergies and childhood obesity*. Breastfeeding even revs up mothers' ability to lose pregnancy weight sooner and may increase the IQ of the child.

In fact breast milk is so impressive that the labels on containers of baby formula laud its benefits. Have you ever seen another product that declared its zero priced competitor a superior product?

Young mothers tend to be the least financially stable. Why pay for formula (which is far from cheap - @ $100/mo.) My philosophy is "Max Out the Free S#@t First." With this, plus all the benefits already mentioned why do young mother seem to not be on board with breast feeding?

             - Clark's Dad


*Facts from Medela Website (potentially biased, but well referenced and cited.)