Hi everyone,

I have been reading with increasing concern the posts regarding both
the calma teat and medela in general and am very worried about the
escalating emotions surrounding these topics, and what they mean for us as a
profession.

Before I continue, I need to declare a disclaimer, that I have never
received any Medela funding for my personal research, although indirectly I
may have benefited when I was a PhD student in Peter Hartmann's lab in the
early days when he first began to receive funding for his research from
medela, I believe the equipment I used to analyse my milk samples for
chloride may have been purchased with that money.

The very negative, and sometimes emotive comments made on this subject in
the last week or so, do not seem to recognise the human face of the subject
of industry funded research (admittedly a much larger subject than can be
effectively discussed here) and it seems to me that many people have been
very quick to demonise the new calma teat simply based on its association
with Medela.

 I would like to provide an alternative view for everyone to consider
(although perhaps not necessarily to agree with......)

Professor Peter Hartmann's research into lactation receives an enormous
amount of funding research from Medela, most of which these days would be
impossible to conduct without this money. Peter lives and breathes this work
night and day, 7 days a week, and has done so for most of his working life
(a very substantial number of years). As lactation consultants I think we
are all very grateful for the insights his work and the work of his students
has given us from understanding the physiology and anatomy of the breast to
the physiology and pathologies surrounding suckling, to the work on human
milk banking and human milk fortifiers, and most recently stem cell research
in breastmilk. The work is broad ranging and has been extremely important in
enabling us to provide better care to Mum's and their babies. Just last
night I attended a poster presentation of 22 separate pieces of research
conducted in his lab by his associates or his students - all of which were
funded partly or wholly by medela and have also either been published in
peer reviewed journals or been presented at the International Society for
Research into Human Milk and Lactation (and are awaiting publication).
Amongst those posters were three related to the calma teat.

1. Heart rates and blood oxygen saturation during feeding with a vacuum
release teat

2. Tongue movement and vacuum in infants feeding from the breast and an
experimental teat that releases milk only with vacuum

3. Suck swallow breathe patterns during feeding from the breast and a vacum
realease teat.

They are yet to be published.

I dont want to comment on "advertising strategies" or code issues related to
teats and bottles (a topic for another day). But I do believe it is
important to recognise that bottles and teats have been in existence since
the 1800s and many mothers either want or need to use them to deliver
breastmilk to their babies. As a human race we are always driven to know
more and achieve better ways of doing things. The hartmann research group
work incredibly hard to deliver new knowledge that we can apply clinically,
and they do this with the best of intentions. Perhaps this teat will not
have the answers that we all seek in providing the best alternative method
of delivering EBM, and objective scepticism is important to evaluate any new
knowledge, but I beseech you all to wait till you are able to objectively
assess the research associated with it before discarding it (and its
inventors) to the trash can.

Warm regards
Cathy Fetherston RM PhD IBCLC
Perth, Western Australia

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