Amy



You put your finger on a question many of us must also have been asking.
Why – in circumstances where formula is scarce or indeed completely
unobtainable – is breastfeeding not normally and strongly supported as a
way to provide food security for vulnerable infants, especially those born
after the original crisis?



I’ve been amazed to observe that not only do policy-makers look away and
say nothing, but that even infant feeding counsellors’ and lactation
professionals’ first response is often to condemn any kind of promotion of
breastfeeding.  During a British formula shortage occasioned by panic
buying at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic I was castigated by
colleagues for trying to persuade my professional association to put up
information about breastfeeding on their website.  I find it baffling that
in a crisis where stocks of formula are inadequate (and it actually takes
40 kg of powdered infant formula to feed one baby for one year) whether
that is due to natural or man-made disasters, it’s still asserted that
mothers have an absolute right to receive enough supplies to formula-feed
and no-one should suggest otherwise, even when we know that very nearly
100% of mothers giving birth initially make enough milk for their babies,
and that lactation constitutes a sustainable food resource that can last
for years.   It seems bizarre to me that anyone would rather risk a baby
starving than query First-World notions of maternal autonomy and bodily
integrity; that we are so fearful about telling mothers that when
everything around them is going wrong, they not only can, but they should
breastfeed?



And I don’t say this merely as a nice idea.  In November 2002 I was working
as a private practice IBCLC in Zimbabwe when the politics of the day
conspired to ensure that infant formula became totally unobtainable.  There
was simply none.  At my antenatal breastfeeding classes where my mostly
European clients also saw infant feeding choice as an inalienable right I
laid it on the line and resorted to begging them to breastfeed to keep
their babies alive, and giving them how-to info.  Miraculously, they all
just breastfed.  The situation was so urgent, they put in the time and
dedication to make it work.  There were no more reports of “I can’t
breastfeed because ……”  and there were no more skinny babies referred by
the paediatricians needing formula supplements.  This experience convinces
me that when mothers have the information they are highly motivated to do
the best they absolutely can for their babies.



Aunchalee Palmquist has just written a paper entitled “Formula for
Disaster”,
https://speakingofmedicine.plos.org/2022/05/24/a-formula-for-disaster/?
<https://speakingofmedicine.plos.org/2022/05/24/a-formula-for-disaster/?f>
She ends by saying, “This crisis should concern us all. It is a health
equity issue. It is a human rights issue. It is a reproductive justice
issue. It is an issue that everyone who loves a child should care about.”



Pamela Morrison

IBCLC Retired

Rustington, England.

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