Hi All,

As many of you know, infant and young child feeding in emergencies is one of my areas of expertise. 
I have recently been in Europe doing research on the IYCF-E response, training people and also helping out volunteer IBCLCs, LLLLs and others who are working with refugee mothers and babies. I spent some time up near the Greek border with Macedonia with a group that is running a mother baby tent in a camp called Eko. Eko has 2000-3000 people in it, and hundreds and hundreds of mothers with babies and young children. The conditions are dreadful, very many mothers are fully or partially bottle feeding and pretty much all refugee mothers giving birth are being given caesars and all are advised to formula feed for the first few days after birth. The only group providing support for infant feeding in this camp is a tiny volunteer group called Nurture Project International http://nurtureprojectinternational.org/. 

When I was in EKO with NPI I met mothers and babies in very bad circumstances. 

One mother had given birth to her baby on in no man's land between Syria and Turkey. She and her husband and 6 children only just made it to Greece as the boat they were on sunk just as they approached land. When I met them, the little baby was 1 mo and weighed only 2.5 kg. He was "feeding 20x a day" and "very sleepy." I watched a feed and he wasn't strong enough to feed very well and you could see that he had lost weight or not grown- he had those saggy thighs that babies get when they are in real trouble. He also had a chest infection. I instigated some support for this mum, providing infant formula with an acceptable level of safety, and developed a plan involving improving breastfeeding efficiency and hand expressing. Unfortunately, I had to leave the next day, but others have been providing assistance to this mum since I left (including Lactnetter Toby Gish's niece!). However, it has been an uphill battle for a variety of reasons and things are still not going well for this little bub- you cannot imagine how difficult it is for mothers in this place.  One of the barriers to his recovery has been the inability to get accurate weights. The scales that they have been able to access have been terribly inaccurate and it's just not good enough. The scale they currently have is worse that useless- giving weights that vary by more than 500g between weights. This baby (and the other malnourished babies there) really need the people helping them to have the necessary tools. 

So, someone from Boston is leaving to come to this camp next week. Somehow, they need to have a good scale. Does anyone have a good scale (one that they would have no qualms using themselves with a very sick baby) that they no longer require that can be sent to this volunteer coming over next week or alternatively $$ to buy one? 

Please contact me privately if you can help.

Karleen Gribble
Australia




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