You know, I understand why everyone gets excited when a mother is
given the wrong baby to nurse.  But think about what that says about
our "official" confidence in breastfeeding vs formula-feeding.

We behave as if the nursing mother - whom we've praised for giving her
milk to her own baby - has suddenly turned to poison.  If we're
actually so deathly afraid of what may happen when she nurses someone
else's baby, why on earth are we letting her nurse her own without
first running all sorts of tests and doing a careful history?  It
makes no sense.   And if her baby is accidentally given formula, we're
disappointed maybe, but we don't treat it as a tragedy.  Yet that
accidental bottle of formula is *guaranteed* to cause harm - by
altering gut flora for at least a couple weeks, as well as increasing
risk for allergies and diabetes.  And it's extremely unlikely that
nursing at the wrong breast will have any consequences at all.

So what we're really saying is, the risk from formula is so
inconsequential that we may not even record it on the chart, where the
risk from human milk is so great that we chew our nails about
potential lawsuits.  When the reality is quite the reverse.  If
breastmilk is *really* that risky, we need to start by protecting
babies from their own mothers.
Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC  Ithaca, NY

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