As a 24-year nurse working in Special Care Nurseries, and 17 of those years
gratefully working with Infant Nutrition research, I think all must
understand that science and technology achieve many things that nature,
when left to it's own, would have "naturally selected" against. From
a "philosophy and ethics" standpoint, many may argue we do too much. In
the science of Neonatology, we truly try to assist nature, using the best
scientific methods possible, utilizing all legal and ethical input
available.
After reading specific posts relating to lactoengineering and technology, I
feel it's most important to understand that the majority of premature and
sick newborns that we keep alive today would not be alive had there not
been technological assistance. Nature truly would have "selected" many of
these infants to not "survive", or at least not to their fullest potential.
Those of us working every day in the research and science end, in addition
to those on the front-lines of patient care in hospitals-especially
intensive care units for newborn infants-dedicate their lives and careers
to assisting nature in whatever ways they can to sustain and enhance life
and health. The fact that, especially in the United States, the health-
care delivery system, and the non-governmental funded research system
provide immense challenges for all these health-care professionals make all
of their work that much more difficult. The fact that ethics of funding
sources have to come into play make it even hard (not to mention the era
of "political correctness" that much of the US lives in).
While breast milk is the gold standard for feeding ALL healthy newborns,
sick newborns must at times be fed with many different strategies, whether
it be intraveneous hyperalimentation, or gavage feedings of human milk, or
in some cases (such as PKU) bio-engineered phenylkenaturia-free infant
formula. HOpefully the technology of the future may be able to ensure that
ALL infants, no matter how sick, premature, or genetically compromised will
be able to receive exclusive human milk. But for now, those of us working
in the field do not feel we are "playing God" but, hopefully assisting
infants to live to their fullest potential.
Sincerely,
Sharon Marshall, RN,IBCLC
(glad to have passed the recent re-cert exam-thanks Jan Barger!)
***********************************************
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(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
|
