>If formula companies will be banned from hospitals and well baby clinics,
>then it is certainly likely that those companies will look for new avenues
>for reaching the public. But again, I would imagine that the impact of such
>advertising would not gain nearly the same results as advertising amongst
>the borderline bf'ers during the first crucial initial period as opposed to
>the established bf'ers or established bottlefeeders by that 3 month period.
The question is, how establishe are they? Lots of people in the US and in
Israel (both places have relatively short maternity leaves) nurse for the
first
couple of months fully expecting to stop when they return to work, so
going back to work and putting babies in day care is a time when you need
another strong push for continued breastfeeding.

Keren had some good points in her post. Finding ways for Na'amat
leadership
and members to own the breastfeeding issue is a good long term strategy.
Sticking by your principles and breastfeeding advocacy position now, while
letting Na'amat know that you are interested in working with them on the
problem
will be a challenge, but in the end, probably worth it.

Na'amat has an "American Friends of Na'amat" fundraising branch. Do you
have
a sense of the American organization and whether they can be brought into
this in a constructive way?

>An even better solution to this problem, of course, would be extending the
>period of paid maternity leave to 6 months rather than the existing one of
>12 weeks.
That would be great. There's your next project :) (just in case you have
nothing else to do for the next couple of years)

Keep us posted.
  Naomi Bar-Yam

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html