Nikki wrote about a contest to create warning labels on formula, such as
these:
WARNING: This product has no health benefits.
WARNING: Use of this product increases a woman's risk of breast cancer.
WARNING: Formula use can make your baby sick.
In response, I must say that perhaps the most appalling example of formula
advertising I've seen was back in 2001 or 2002, while as an LC in a peds office
(which was just one of my part-time jobs at that time). A well-known formula
company's sales representative dropped off magazines targeted to pregnant
clients - - she must have delivered even larger stacks of these magazines to
the area's midwifery and obstetric practices. The magazines contained
beautiful full-color photographs of the fetus, looking rather identical to the
photographs from the popular book of the past four decades, "A Child Is
Born". Page by page, the magazine displayed photographs of the baby's
embryonic and fetal development all the way to birth, then ended with a chat
on how that brand of formula was available to provide superior nutrition to the
newborn, etc. I searched through the entire magazine and couldn't find a
word about breastfeeding and human milk, much less a mention of
breastfeeding and human milk as the next natural process following pregnancy
and birth.
Of course I could go on with many other stories that end in a similar manner
re: how shocked and deeply saddened I have been to witness such
marketing.
However, I'm thinking of recent clients and clients in the past who have had
to supplement their babies with other than their own milk due to hypoplasia as
pronounced as I expect I will ever see, history of breast reduction with a
profound impact on lactation, etc. When clients share personal stories about
grief over the loss of a hoped-for course of exclusive breastfeeding as well as
stories about profound embarrassment in taking the new baby for early outings
after birth and feeding the baby with a bottle in order to avoid embarrassment
in feeding with a supplementer at the breast, the last thing I would want my
clients or any mother to experience is to read warning labels on containers of
artificial infant milk as suggested above. How wonderful it has been to
recommend Diana West's book on breastfeeding and breast reduction, as well
as her second book, "Making More Milk, co-authored with Lisa Marasco.
In this forum, it should go without saying that yes, I believe that donor human
milk should be readily accessible to babies who do not have access to a full
maternal milk supply. I am grateful to be alive in an era in which HMBANA and
other milk banks are doing so much good in the world.
Am thinking of my 79-year-old mother who, in 1961 in Reedsville, West Virginia
USA, spent many hundreds of hours preparing sterilized bottles as well as
homemade "formula," using a recipe for said "formula" provided by our family
physician (Carnation evaporated milk, Karo syrup, and water), made especially
for my baby sister. I was 7 years old then, and have vivid memories of my
mother so busy in our kitchen with that particular activity, day after day. Our
family physician, who passed many years ago after diagnosing his own
malignant brain tumor, made numerous house calls to diagnose and treat our
frequent ear infections, sore throats/tonsillitis, chicken pox, measles, mumps,
etc. Since my mother didn't know anyone who was breastfeeding in our little
town, our physician must have had a rather busy practice tending to so many
sick babies, children, and adults.
Debra Swank, RN IBCLC
Nearly 56 years old in Ashburn, Virginia USA
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