This was sort of driving me crazy- Found it!  Think it would be a very
intriguing way to start a class for teens.  From a pamphlet called "Take
the Baby-Friendly Initiative!  A global effort with hospitals, health
services and parents to breastfeed babies for the best start in life.  By
UNICEF. Undated as best I can tell.

"Imagine that the world had invented a new 'dream product' to feed an
immunize everyone born on Earth.  Imagine also that it was available
everywhere, required no storage or delivery-and helped mothers to plan
their families and reduce the risk of cancer:
Then imagine that the world refused to use it.

Towards the end of this century of unprecedented discovery and invention,
even as scientists discover the origins of life itself, this scenario is
not, alas, a fiction.  The 'dream product' is human breastmilk, available
to us all at birth, and yet we are not using it.

Quite simply but quite certainly, breastfeeding is now an endangered
practice around the world, in both rich and poor countries:
* There is a universal increase in feeding babies with infant formulas
instead of breastmik and a decline in breastfeeding, especially exclusive
breastfeeding.
* Too many hospitals, the sources and symbols of modern medical practice,
hinder breastfeeding through practices such as separating  the newborn baby
from the mother immediately after birth.
* Every year over 1 million infants die, and millions of others are
impaired, because they are not adequately breastfed.

In all parts of the world babies are being born into unfriendly
environments, victims of widespread poverty, rapid urbanization and
relentless marketing of breastmilk substitutes.

This is happening despite overwhelming scientific evidence that human
breastmilk is vastly superior to anything available from our most
sophisticated technologies.  Science is rediscovering what our
great-granparents already knew: that  breastfeeding is Nature's perfect
'room service' for newborns, no matter where they are born.

Yet this knowledge, both ancient and modern, is not being widely practised
by the world's healthcare institutions.  Ironically, the nearer a mother is
to most modern hospitals the greater the pressures are to stop
breastfeeding.

Of the world's 4,237 species of mammals, Homo sapiens is the only one
threatening  Nature's proven method of caring for its newborns.  It is
clearly time to re-establish the common sense of breastfeeding as common
practice.

With support from world leaders, health experts and non governmental
organizations (NGOs), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the
World Health Organization (WHO) have now launched the baby-friendly
initiative to convince hospitals, health services and parents that
breastfeeding gives babies the best possible start in life.

16 more pages.  Sincerely, Pat in SNJ




Of the qworld's

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