>I was wondering if hospitals couldn't give out slings/soft carriers in
lieu=20
of diaper bags?<
Here is the perspective of my organisation -- volunteer breastfeeding
supporters in the UK. We will not accept sponsorship from, association with
or give endorsements for any type of sling. We would not support giving
slings to breastfeeding women as an alternative to company logo'd bags for
formula feeding women. Yes, some breastfeeding women will find slings not
only a great way to parent their baby but an irreplaceable aid to the
establishment and continuation of breastfeeding. However, slings imply a
type of parenting -- and the association which may be made in some women's
minds is 'oh breastfeeding -- that means you HAVE to go in for slings,
continual contact, etc. I am not that type of person, so I won't
breastfeed.' I am NOT DISPUTING that such behaviours may help establish and
continue breastfeeding and, in my contact with mothers, I would recommend
such ways of being with her baby to foster breastfeeding. To do that when I
also had some financial interest or link with the company -- including
promoting their marketing in the local hospital -- would seem unethical to
me. Our organisation takes the view (rather strange to the north american
gaze, as I realise after some years on lactnet) that we need to have no
source of conflicting/competing interests and also must scrupulously avoid
the appearance of conflict of interests. This means no association with
comapnies which have an interest in the outcomes of women's feeding
decisions.
A second VITALLY IMPORTANT point is that my understanding of the WHO/UNICEF
code and the UNICEF BFHI is that the measures in the former apply to ALL
BABIES. Even where formula fed, babies deserve to have the choices about
their feeding made in an environment FREE OF COMMERCIAL OR MARKETING
inducements. The BFHI -- as practiced and taught here in the UK applies to
ALL babies -- so that ALL women are told of the 'benefits' of
breastfeeding -- not just breastfeeding women, ALL women and babies have
skin to skin after birth, not just women who have declared an intent to
breastfeed, etc. The spirit of the Code and especially the Convention of
the Rights of the Child is that one of the (human) rights of babies is to
have their welfare at the centre of all decisions about feeding. If you
limit commercial access to only breastfed babies, what is this right worth
for the others, and how much higher you make the stakes for companies to
persuade women that they need some kind of product to go along with
breastfeeding, or to abandon breastfeeding. The choice of any particular
formula, other feeding product or feeding vessel, should be made on
scientific grounds rather than on the basis of the most compelling
advertising or inducement. (Yes, I know that there is rarely scientific
evidence to make a choice, but this is still what should be aimed for).
This perspective is culturally challenging to most of us in the UK, and I
think that, in my native country of the USA, this will seem a bizarre view
totally out of joint with the prevailing realities where one is sold into
logo-slavery before birth. Just trying to share my perspective.... I
believe you will find, though, that my view is in congruence with some
others around the world, maybe most clearly in WABA.
One question -- I know that the BFI assessors here in the UK go on study
sessions to other -- often very different -- regions of the world to see how
BFI operates there and to get a flavour of the international diversity -- do
US assessors also do this?
Magda Sachs, Breastfeeding Supporter
The Breastfeeding Network, UK
http://www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/
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