That's very well argued, Tricia, and while I doubt this particular woman 
will be receptive, I hope lactnetters will note your comments for use with 
other practitioners they may encounter. The AAP and international documents 
should be sufficient, and then it's up to this new medical graduate to prove 
HER case for artificial baby milk - and at the same level as what she is 
demanding of human milk, i.e. benefit across most health outcomes, not just 
one or two! She also seems to be unaware that breastfeeding is more than 
just the milk.

I'm wondering how much of her thinking has been influenced by marketing. 
Even intelligent people absorb these messages and base their attitudes on 
them. I also wonder if she was exposed to strong emotional negatives while 
she was growing up, e.g. mother's attitude. This is something that Angela 
will never know, of course, but clearly this woman has a huge mental block 
on anything good surrounding breastfeeding and I suspect an entrenched 
emotional component to her thinking. Poor woman, poor patients!

Sadly, advertising for leading brands of factory-made artificial milks for 
older infants promotes the additives - but neglects to state that there 
isn't much of these in artificial formula, compared with the significant 
amount in human milk. An example is the 130 or more oligosaccharides in 
mother's milk.  Parents hearing the advertisements naturally assume their 
precious baby can only get prebiotics (and probiotics and omega 3s) from the 
advertised product in the can, and this belief can easily lead to action, 
such as taking a baby off human milk and switching to the commercial 
product. What new mothers need is ongoing support for breastfeeding, not 
further undermining by a new medical graduate who insists that breastfeeding 
is inadequate.

Virginia

Dr Virginia Thorley, OAM, PhD, IBCLC, FILCA
Private Practice Lactation Consultant
Cultural Historian of the History of Medicine
Brisbane, QLD 4072

Tricia Shamblin wrote:

Dear Angela,
The real problem is not lack of evidence of benefits of breastfeeding, or 
detriments of formula feeding, it's the lack of good research about 
breastfeeding. ... Mostly, we only have observational studies and literature 
reviews, and one million years of evolution at this point, to go on. But my 
question for her would be, if that's not enough for her, what research is 
she
 planning to use as her evidence that formula is adequate? ... it's her 
responsibility to provide proof of it's adequacy, it's not our 
responsibility to defend human milk for human beings. And I would challenge 
HER to find large scale, cause and effect studies that show that formula is 
as healthy for infants as human milk. When you talk to her, also I would be 
sure to use the term "human milk" not breast milk, as a reminder that what 
we are talking about is human milk for human beings....
.... as a new MD, I think she should be especially careful about passing 
along advice that conflicts with information provided by the AAP, ACOG, the 
Surgeon General, the AAFP, WHO and Unicef. ... Where are her large, cause 
and effect studies to make her case? Where are her studies showing human 
milk is detrimental?

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