What a compelling cover photo you carried this week in which a Muslim refugee
mother is shown trekking to the Kosovo border while cradling her
breastfeeding infant in her arms. The fact that this mother is breastfeeding
will probably save her baby's life. Unfortunately, numerous artificially-fed
infant refugees will almost certainly become ill and die due to a lack of
infant formula, as well as unsanitary water and living conditions and the
loss of the protective immunities and superior nutrition that breastfeeding
offers. According to recent UNICEF statistics, more than one-million infants
in the developing world continue to lose their lives each year due to lack of
breastfeeding. The risk of unexpected natural disaster, civil unrest, or war
is one of the many reasons why WHO recommends breastfeeding for at least the
first two years of a child's life.

Intense commercial pressure and enticing product giveaways from U.S. and
other western pharmaceutical companies engaged in the sale of infant formula
has been demonstrated to be a primary reason why women all over the world
stop breastfeeding within a few weeks or months. Sadly, once a woman gives up
breastfeeding, she becomes completely dependent on expensive--and in times of
crisis such as this--unavailable infant formula to sustain her baby.

 I certainly hope that  these same pharmaceutical companies are now quickly
making plans to head to eastern Europe with a few hundred thousand more of
the "free samples" of formula with which they originally sent Kosovar mothers
home from the hospital. Unfortunately,  those mothers who succumbed to
marketing and gave up on breastfeeding certainly need the formula a lot more
now than they did then.

Katie Allison Granju
Knoxville, TN


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