I am certainly no expert in what goes on in much of Latin America.
However, I often ask questions of the grandmothers (I speak passable
Spanish) who usually accompany their daughters to the breastfeeding
clinic (possibly another reason the daughters do well is that sort of
support).  These grandmothers often will say that everyone
breastfeeds, that the extended family supports breastfeeding and helps
the mother out, but when I delve deeper, that hospital and physicians
are often pushing formula.  The families that come to Canada, *tend*
to be more educated and more affluent than the average person in Peru
or Mexico or even Argentina, and thus are more exposed to the dubious
benefits of private hospitals and Western trained physicians.

There is no doubt that there is a great attraction in Latin America to
the life style of the "Goldene Mideneh" (Golden Land) to the north and
that includes formula feeding, which is seen as some sort of magic
potion.  It is for this reason that the failures of countries such as
Canada (which no one except Canadians know anything about and even we
don't) and the US (which everyone has a distorted idea about,
including Americans) to promote breastfeeding is bad not only for our
own mothers and babies, but also mothers and babies everywhere in the
world.

Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC