I don't post often, but Nikki's story of the mother from Guatemala and the recent discussion about telling the truth has lured me out of the closet to reveal one of my most shameful memories.

A friend of mine had befriended a woman in the U.S. without documentation from a remote area of Mexico and attended her birth, encouraging her to breastfeed.  The new mother began "topping off" with 2 oz of formula while still in the hospital.  My friend asked me to see her within a week of birth to observe the breastfeeding and help encourage the mother to stop supplementing.  I was working at a WIC breastfeeding clinic and spent about an hour and a half talking to the mom, with my friend present, discussing the benefits of not needing formula and assuring her that she had plenty of milk.

About a month later, my friend called me to say that this mother was now bottle feeding more than breastfeeding and asked me to see her again.  Shamefully, I lectured my friend instead, telling her that the mother had all the information and encouragement at her disposal, but had been choosing this course since birth.  About a month after that, the mother stopped breastfeeding altogether.

When the baby was 5 months old, totally bottle fed, and mother hadn't produced milk in 3 months, the mother was picked up by INS for deportation back to Mexico.  Her choice was to go home with the baby, or leave the baby with friends in the U.S.  She went home to Mexico with the baby.  Her village had no safe clean source of water, and formula was priced outside the scope of her income.

I'll never forgive myself for this and learned a hard lesson in telling the truth.

Jeanne Mitchell, RN IBCLC
Austin, TX

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