Rachel, I don’t know if you realise this, but this is what started my work almost 40 years ago, and has given my son problems all his life.
It is also what my new and very different textbook documents, explains, and addresses: the cascading intergenerational consequences of comp feeds in western societies and the need to prevent this practice and work back via exclusive breastfeeding towards normal gene expression in family lines. I promise you that reading Milk matters will change the attitude of any paediatrician: they are not stupid, just ignorant of what they are setting in train. There is even a discussion about the legal issues involved.
I am so sad that Norway is belatedly heading down a track that causes so much misery in not only in the first generation being exposed, but also their children and grandchildren: truly, professionals do not know what they do when they comp feed a baby. I am also sad that to date so many lactation consultants apparently do not see the importance of my very original and well-referenced book (proposing the Milk Hypothesis to replace the hygiene hypothesis) to their crusade against all such damaging practices. Professor Roger Short thinks it will 'ultimately lead to the demise of the infant formula industry', Professor Mary Renfrew thinks it "will change the world and people’s perceptions of it”, but it will do so only if it is widely read.
Like Frank Nice, I do not write books to make money. In fact any money I have made in my work has merely enabled me to do more of that work free, as I have never once charged a mother for help, and usually leave them with slings and books and pumps and so on which are rarely returned. I personally think that Lactnet should actively encourage the posting and response from list members to requests like Frank’s, provided they are simply put and provide contact details for more information. Only people who have never self-published a new book in this field think that there is money to be made from doing so! I have sold over 25,000 copies of both my previous books and have no savings to show for it. My choice, and I have enjoyed the freedom, so I am not complaining; Australia has an old age pension, which long-term self-funded breastfeeding advocates like myself and Virginia Thorley rely upon. But I do think Lactnet could serve as a vehicle for informing list members about new publications: to date, despite much enthusiasm and many promises, not one review has been published so almost 6 months has passed since my book was made available. It may be a wasted year before LCs read reviews. Perhaps some Lactnetter who has read my book could critique it and tell others whether I am exaggerating its importance.
Maureen MINCHIN
Medical historian, early signup to Lactnet, founding member of ILCA who helped create IBLCE, IBCLC 1985-2006, BFHI Lead Assessor Nigeria Feb 1992; BFHI educator and assessor Australia until 2010; author Food for Thought (1982-1992) Breastfeeding Matters (1985-1998) which addressed breastfeeding issues, and Milk Matters: infant feeding and immune disorder (2015) which addresses infant formula damage and its epigenetic consequences: www.infantfeedingmatters.com <http://www.infantfeedingmatters.com/> for responses to date. (I add this because a generation of Lactnetters has no idea who I am thanks to my taking a decade off Lactnet when caring for parents.)
>
>
> Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2015 19:08:35 -0400
> From: Rachel Myr <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Need for supplements in first 48 hours?
>
> While I find the topic distressing it is some comfort to see that my virtual living room is filled with people who are as aghast as I am about this.
>
> Virginia, the most upsetting thing to me here is that Norway weathered the decline of BF initiation nearly everywhere else in the world at the time of industrialization, urbanization, aggressive marketing of breastmilk substitutes, and even institutionalization of childbirth. Nearly 100% of women had initiated breastfeeding from 1860 on. There has never been an artificially fed generation before, but I think we are seeing the beginnings of one now - two generations after the rest of the industrialized world and just a decade or so after Norway branded itself as 'world champions in breastfeeding' (no kidding, a lot of people here still actually believe that myth). In the last five years, when women have EVERYTHING going for breastfeeding societally, the pediatricians have suddenly jumped on the blood sugar bandwagon so that pre-lacteal feeds of formula are almost more common than undisturbed skin to skin until the first feed.
>
> Baby-Friendly in Norway seems powerless to do anything about it. The evaluation process is now done by self-report, on line. Fox guarding chicken coop, IMO.
>
> I plan to start a discussion at work on the human rights violations inherent in depriving 1) women of any choice about how their baby is to be cared for if it falls into any one of the ever increasing number of high risk groups targeted for being given the milk of an alien species before getting a drop of colostrum from its own mother and 2) children of the right to have a chance to make a normal shift from intra- to extrauterine life without having their chances of being breastsfed jeopardized. May need to involve the legal dept at the hospital on this one :-/
>
> Rachel Myr
> Kristiansand, Norway
> where it's past my bedtime but just like in the old days, LN is still keeping me up. and fired up
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