On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Kershaw Jane
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Again, we get all this, we are lactation consultants.

I've never hit my three posts until today, so I won't be able to
respond again until tomorrow, but I was responding to Christine's
statement: "We should be promoting breastmilk, however the family
choses, instead of focusing on the vehicle by which it is being
delivered." Because, to me, it DIDN'T sound like she "got it." It
sounded like she felt breastmilk was the most important element in the
equation, and I am suggesting it is not necessarily so.

>BUT we are still struggling in every hospital environment with the reality that MOST babies get formula, even breast babies, in hospitals (or formula by-products).  I challenge anyone to show me I am wrong.  Let's unite against the proliferation of formula.  Reality says most every breast pump company that relies totally on breast pump sales has gone belly-up, or been sold because not enough profit.  Look at the history.  Reality check, please.

Reality check? Here's the reality in my country (US), state
(Colorado), and city (Pueblo)--which means one of the lower SES areas
in an otherwise breastfeeding successful state: AT LEAST 75% of
mothers are initiating breastfeeding (I would guess it's over 80%). In
my hospital-based childbirth classes I RARELY have anyone ask about
not breastfeeding. The women in my community do not need to be "sold"
on the "benefits" of breastmilk. They get that. What they do need is
support to breastfeed exclusively and for an optimum duration. They
don't get that. What they do get is lots of messages of being tied
down, of breastfeeding being inconvenient, of cultural taboos about bf
in public (approximately half of our population is Hispanic), and of
inadequate employer support regarding milk expression. Unethical
marketing is NOT going to improve their situations. If they're
exclusively pumping, unable to find a place to pump during breaks
(despite a new law providing such), not nursing during night/weekends,
how are they going to be able to maintain a supply at all? Our mothers
don't even need to purchase pumps really--most of our population is
WIC-eligible and we are fortunate to have a WIC that has ample lender
pumps and gives a personal use double electric to anyone who is
separating full time and exclusively bf (oh yes, these are products
from said company, but that's another ball of wax), so they may not
even be the purchasers in these scenarios. But will they be vulnerable
to ads that further promote those notions of breastfeeding's
inconvenience? You betcha.

Perhaps it is my mother-to-mother support background, but I do not
believe that uniting against the proliferation of formula is the best
way to support mothers in their breastfeeding journeys. That's just
negative campaigning. Breastfeeding rates are increasing. People are
pretty aware that breastmilk is superior to formula. I don't think,
though, that people are getting that breastfeeding confers many of
those "benefits" of breastmilk--not just the milk. Because rates of
exclusive pumping are going up too. So *someone* is getting a message
across that breastmilk, but not breast per se, is best. I wonder
who...

And my preemptive strike before someone could suggest otherwise: of
course I am available to help mothers who are exclusively pumping. I
am absolutely all about meeting them where they're at--just as I might
help a mother wean her 4 month old gently--but I'm not about to sit
idly by and say it's okay for propaganda that undermines the
importance of that very delivery method to be spouted at women who are
in very vulnerable periods in their lives, especially when it violates
a code of ethics that I signed.

Marketing works. If it didn't, they wouldn't spend so much money on it.

Gina Gerboth, IBCLC, CD(DONA), CBE
Pueblo, Colorado

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