After another day of supporting crying Active Duty breastfeeding mothers who are being forced to wean and go to formula due to pending deployment and idea hit.... What if we all could coordinate a program at this time to support our military moms by getting them access to free donor milk from the HMBA? During this war , other organizations have provided services such as dula support for our families seperated by the war. What about starting a "push" for human milk support and national change by going this route? I know its an " out of the box" idea but think of it this way... who is our biggest ostrich when it comes to supporting international infant health promotion? Our government! Who , despite all the research, continues to only give lip service to the benefits? our government! Who is the largest employer of childbearing females here in the US, yet consistantly makes no concentrated effort to change or promote work place changes to protect our families in this area? Our government! Who is going against the research based recommendations to promote optimal infant nutrition, refuses to change deployment policies to protect that vital 6 month- year and forces our service members to utilize a third rate prodect ( and bear the cost of this decision? Our DOD ( Department of Defense) again our government! Who is screaming about rising health care costs but ignoring the research that would help lower some of the costs? Our government. Who is one of the largest voices in World Health issues yet fails to support legislation, international poliicies that support our families instead of industry lobbiests? our government.Etc, etc, etc! Why not then bring some great support, publicity to their plight and bring our national level of awareness to the truth that while formula is another source of sustaining infant nutrition, it is a third rate product based on research. In the case of our young women serving our country and meeting mission needs, in dangerous situations, why don't WE take the bull by the horns and start shaking the very people who should be supporting their employees? It hasen't worked with bringing the forcus to our low income families, etc... then what about addressing it in this manner? If the military/ government will not make changes to protect the breastfeeding dyad and promote infant maternal health for one stinking year shouldn't our public also know that? These moms want to do their jobs but the current rules force them to ignore world health recommendations and also bear not only the future life long knowledge that they have no right to protect their baby and to top it off, get to pay what? $ 1500 a year in formula costs alone for being honorable and meeting mission needs? What a great way we all can help these moms. La Leche, ILCA, etc can encourage our non military moms to help with the donation, maybe provide or assist in seeking some " grant" money to off set the costs, etc. We already have the Ad program for promotion, wouldn't this be an interesting spin to put on it? It also gives the medical community a great pool for research in decreasing health risks by using donor moilk, encourages the medical community to look more at donor milk for our ill babies, encourages some focus on current DOD deployment policies SERVICE WIDE and not just one branch at a time and hopefully gives a kick in the pants to all government agencies to start providing real support and change instead of just lip service Ok, maybe a crazy idea but.............. Lisa Jones RN IBCLC RLC who tossed and turned all night because it rips my gut out not being able to get the big bosses to provide some real support to our nursing moms. *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html