Dear Director,

It was with great dismay that I saw an advertisement for your “Baby Bottle
Blitz” in my church’s Sunday morning bulletin.

The World Health Organization states on its website
(http://www.who.int/nut/inf.htm) that “nutrition and nurturing during the
first three years are both crucial for lifelong health and well-being. In
infancy, no gift is more precious than breastfeeding; yet barely one in
three infants is exclusively breastfed during the first four months of
 life.”

While there are some women who are unable to provide human milk for their
children, and others who choose not to breastfeed their babies, the fact
remains that breastfeeding is the healthiest method of feeding babies.  It
is the biological norm for our species.  The WHO believes that feeding via
bottle and artificial nipple is not merely second best for infants who are
not feeding directly from their mothers’ breasts, but actually fifth best,
following expressed milk from their mother, wet nursing, donor milk from a
milk bank and finally a breast milk substitute all fed via cup.

http://www.who.int/gb/EB_WHA/PDF/WHA55/ea5515.pdf

The flier I saw stated that your organization believes that “women who are
healthy, educated and encouraged are better able to make decisions and
provide loving and safe homes for themselves and their children.”

Continuing to promote bottles as simply another part of babyhood only
facilitates the association of normalcy for artificial feeding.  I encourage
you to find another symbol for your worthy cause and I encourage you to add
breastfeeding education to your program of assisting pregnant women in
crisis.  Adding the expense of formula, bottles and increased doctor’s
visits (due to increased illness and allergy associated with not feeding
human milk) will only add to their burden.  Please help these new mothers
make the decision to breastfeed their babies by not promoting bottles as the
norm for babies.

Sincerely,


Kathy Koch. M.Ed, IBCLC
International Board Certified Lactation Consultant

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