Hello everybody,

This might not concern a lot of you, but maybe you can help with some advice.

Today I received a new parenting magazine published here in Israel.
("Lihiyot Mishpacha" for the Israelis among you). It's very nice looking,
on high quality paper, lots of photos etc. It has 14(!) full page ads for
formulas, bottles, pacifiers, including a giftpack for new subscribers with
colourful disney babybottles...There are only 9 ads for anything else -
toys, diapers, shoes, vitamins etc.

One of the ads, on the back cover, shows a breastfeeding baby (wrong
positioning), and the ad says : After breastfeeding...and up to three years
- Sim...c. To show mothers that you bf a small baby, but of course you will
 need formula later...


The magazine was sent to community doctor's clinics by the health insurance
(kupat holim klalit), to be put in the waiting room, together with a heap
of advertising booklets for bottles and pacifiers. In the past I was told
by the health insurance that they do this because the company manufacturing
these products donates "fun days" for nurses, or something of the kind.
This health insurance is also my employer (that's the system here - the
insurers also run their own clinics and hospitals).

What would you do? What can I write this magazine? What can I write the
health insurance? What will it matter? I feel helpless, but I also feel SO
angry.

I know you in the US fight many battles like this, and books have been
written about money and breastfeeding. I think that hearing from your
personal experience might cheer me up, and give me some energy to go on
fighting.

Mira Leibovich, MD
Family Medicine specialist
Kibbutz Hama'apil, Israel