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Date: | Mon, 31 Jan 2005 12:06:46 EST |
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In a message dated 1/31/2005 9:26:09 A.M. Mountain Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Secondly please please tell me how I can get involved with trying to make
the code inforced in the United States. Why this all powerful country can't
inforce this policy makes no sense. If we truely care about the health of
our youngest citizens this has GOT to change. More than WIC changing , more
than anything else, women have to stop being bombarded with marketing and
bad labeling at every turn. I need to know how to become involved with those
trying to get legislation or codes or whatever passed and changed.
Unfortunately this is a much bigger mountain to climb than it may seem. Our
society (in general) does not value children. Our society does not value
motherhood. I have lived overseas and in all the traveling I did, I never
feared for my children's safety the way I do just going to do errands here in the
United States. My daughter was born in the Republic if Korea while I was on
Active Duty. My nanny, an older Korean woman, wanted to know when the
United States celebrated Children's Day (a VERY big holiday in Korea) and I had to
tell her that we don't even have one. What does that say about what we
value?
My friend, from Germany, asked me where mothers could take their children
(infants) if they didn't want to keep them. Where indeed? We jail mothers who
abandon their babies but won't allow mothers who WANT their babies to keep
them in the same hospital room. I have walked out of more doctors offices,
dentists office and had more arguments with hospital staff because I would not
leave my children alone for a procedure and would not exclude my other child
from their siblings treatment (an ultrasound...nothing traumatic). Why is
this a fight?
I cannot stand to do in-patient consults anymore because it is too
depressing to watch hospital staff mis-informing mothers on HOW to mother at this
crucial time by separating them from their babies, forcing formula and, in
general not encouraging mothers to be informed and educated. This is, of course, a
generalization as there are many health care workers who do their best to
keep mothers and babies together and promote skin to skin and breastfeeding but
they are in the minority. Why? Why do we thumb our noses in the face of
evidence based medicine but continue to teach new mothers and new health care
workers that the "old way", though not evidenced based, is the "real way".
My sister is teaching 7th grade in Harlem and is trying desperately to help
kids who have only known one way of life and see no point in getting an
education because there is nowhere for them to take that education. Would these
children have been helped if their mothers' had been encouraged to breastfeed
and supported in that effort? We know that breastfed children and their
mothers enjoy a closer bond and those mothers make more of an effort to stimulate
their children in appropriate ways and that those children are more likely
to display an increased (or normal really) I.Q. later in life. This is asking
a lot from these mothers and from our society. What should we ask for in
order that babies are protected and their society shelters them? ( I keep
thinking of the things I have read about cultures where the mother and baby are
taken care of for several weeks or months after birth so they can focus on
each other...heavenly!!)
It is a sad state of affairs. I would suggest writing to every member of
the legislature in Texas and other states which are considering bills to limit
the promotion of formula. In this litigious society a law is needed just to
enforce what should be common sense and is definitely maternal instinct.
All of us working to improve this situation in the United States need all
the help and encouragement we can get! I am so grateful to be able to read
LACTNET and see that there are strides being made and that we are not alone in
our efforts!
Christie Pillado
El Paso, Texas
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