Dear Ms Rogers,

I was sorry to learn in a press release from PRNewswire (which I read on
Yahoo), that your otherwise excellent maternity chain will be cross promoting
with Ross, the baby formula manufacturers.

Ross makes its living from agressively promoting a product -- artificial baby
formula -- which undermines the health of the mothers who buy it and their
babies.  Their Welcome Addition club, which I read that you will be promoting
in your stores, ships promotional formula to the hands of breastfeeding
mothers, despite plenty of research that makes it clear that such "gifts"
really do reduce the average incidence and duration of breastfeeding even of
the most committed mothers.  Similarly, their brochure about breastfeeding
begins by listing at length every thing that could possibly scare a mother
off from trying it ("What if I get mastitis?"), and the "Breastfeeding Gift
Packs" they distribute include cans of promotional formula in between the
cute teething rings and the "breastmilk cooler packs."

The World Health Organization and the American Association of Pediatricians
both think this kind of marketing is bad for babies.   Why are you signing on
to promote it?

I have been a loyal customer of yours with each of my pregnancies so far, and
am still in maternity clothes right this minute; but until I hear or read
that this agreement between Motherhood Maternity and Ross has been called
off, I will sadly stay out of your stores -- and tell my many pregnant
friends to do the same.

Hoping to hear from you soon that this is not going to happen --

Sincerely,

Elisheva Urbas
250 West 94th Street #6H, New York City 10025
[log in to unmask]

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html