Karleen

I couldn't agree more!  Of course those of us working to protect, 
promote and support breastfeeding need to know all there is to know 
about alternatives to breastfeeding - what they are, how they're 
used, why women turn to them, the few cases of real need for them, 
the health consequences of inappropriate use etc etc.  We need to be 
acutely aware and knowledgeable about all aspects of infant feeding.

But in policy documents, I'd like to see clearer endorsement of the 
importance of _breastfeeding_ and less of the wishy-washy ambiguous 
language which could, and will, be interpreted as acceptance of, or 
indeed covert promotion of unnecessary and inappropriate replacements 
for breastmilk in the feeding of infants and young children.  These 
things will come back to bite us in the future.  And the terminology 
has already reached quite ridiculous proportions - I was once invited 
to join a list called "Friends of Infant and Young Child 
Feeding".  On the one hand I was deeply suspicious - who else was on 
the list?   On the other, it seemed so ludicrous - would declining 
the invitation make me into an Enemy of Infant and young child 
feeding???  My original rant was really just a call for transparency 
to say let's be really clear and say Breastfeeding when that's what 
we mean, and say artificial feeding, or formula-feeding or 
peanut-paste-feeding when _that's_ what we mean :-)   Could be that 
I've been boning up on too many written materials produced by 
industry - the language they use is also nebulous and ambiguous in 
the extreme, and it's alarming to recognize the same kind of 
terminology being lifted from them and lately to appear in "our" documents.

Pamela Morrison IBCLC
Rustington, England
-------------------------------------------
Date:    Tue, 29 Dec 2009 09:35:38 +1100
From:    Karleen Gribble <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Need a reference!

Hi Pam,
I don't know what is behind WHO's more frequent use of breastfeeding but I
find myself talking more and more about "infant feeding" and actually made a
plea at a recent conference for more people to do "infant feeding" research.
The fact of the matter is that by focusing on breastfeeding we've only been
looking at half of the picture. For eg we really don't know why women start
to use formula and how they use it. Without this information we cannot
possibly do anything to help mothers avoid its use. IMO all those who wish
to support mothers to breastfeed need to become "infant feeding" experts and
know just as much about formula as we do about breastfeeding. How can we
possibly make mothers aware of the potential consequences of using formula
if we don't know this ourselves. *****A note here for Australian health
professionals**** The NHMRC guidelines for infant feeding requires health
professionals to inform mothers of the risks associated with using formula,
how many of you do so??
Karleen Gribble
Australia

  

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