"My 3 are just like me,hated being meddled with."
Is 'being held' the same as being 'meddled with'?
I don't think so.
"Great you liked to hold yours for hours, I didn't.Many mums work,many have siblings to care for or have multiples like me."
MilaMae, I suspect that what you're actually trying to do here is stereotype mums who breastfeed as self-indulgent, middle-class tree huggers. You forget that most women around the world breastfeed, and work, and have much larger families than we do here in the UK. I live in a very ethnically diverse area where we have breastfeeding initiation rates that are well above the national average. That's because these mums - the African and Asian mums, almost all choose to breastfeed. They're not all 'tree-huggers'. Well, some of them might be. But the rest of them are ordinary women - like me and like you.
I held my babies because they wanted to be held. Sometimes I felt overwhelmed by it - but that's motherhood for you. Would also point out that I worked and studied and had children that are very close in age, so was having to cope with the school run, a toddler, and a baby who wanted to be fed a lot. And part time work. And study. And volunteering.
"The fact is feeding choices will have very little impact on how much a baby is held compared to the various other reasons."
It's not a fact. It's your opinion! The only thing I can think of other than feeding that impacts at a population level on how much a baby is held is a) whether they're a multiple or b) whether the mother has to go back to work straight away. The other variables (such as how much contact a baby or mother WANTS) apply just as much to bf as to ff babies.