This was the reply I got to my letter...
"
Dear Customer:
Thank you for sending us a letter expressing your concerns with our current
Welcome Addition Club alliance.
I have spoken with our Vice President of Marketing and your opinions about
our current programs have been heard!
We are evaluating our current program and strongly support breastfeeding.
Our current marketing program provides information on pregnancy,
breastfeeding and nursing apparel
along with a gift of a free diaper bag, cooler and storage bottles which can
be used for breast milk or even baby food. It's for every mother.
In addition, we strongly support La Leche League International by delivering
a full page of
information about breastfeeding information and LaLeche in our Motherhood
Nursingwear catalog. This catalog is mailed to all of
our customers in their ninth month of pregnancy to encourage breast feeding.
We also support
Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition, and their endeavors to build
breastfeeding.
Again, thank you for making us aware of your thoughts.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any other comments.
Sincerely,
Customer Service"
and this was my "further comments"
... << Our current marketing program provides information on pregnancy,
breastfeeding and nursing apparel
along with a gift of a free diaper bag, cooler and storage bottles which can
be used for breast milk or even baby food. It's for every mother. >>
That is my point, the assumption that every mother will be assumed to "need"
bottles to feed her baby, a sublte but powerful endorsement of artificial
feeding as the standard of care for babies. ( Poll a thousand people and most
all will assume formula is in any bottle.) Of course diaper bags and coolers
come in handy, but the assumption that every mother needs bottles is
erroneous. This is exactly why alliances with product companies which do not
support the International Code of Marketing Breastmilk Substitutes, and the
Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative cannot be done without passing on the bias
toward artificial feeding. It might seem subtle, and it might seem
unimportant, it might even seem impossibly picky to note this, but the fact
remains that people are influenced away from the risks of formula, as if the
choice to feed human milk or a substitute is mostly a matter of preference of
one equivalent to another, by joining maternity and artificial feeding
products together.
Judy LeVan Fram, Brooklyn, NY
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