I am still in shock and have recovered from the influenza that hit everyone
in the house (except for the breastfeeding newborn) to post this.  Bear with
the personal aspect for a minute.  I carefully avoided filling out any
little freebie post cards and such during this recent pregnancy.  I did
purchase a dress for a special event at Motherhood, but gave my due date as
December-ish since I usually go 42-43 weeks.  Wellllllll, this baby came at
38 weeks and we had an incredibly wonderful, albeit unplanned, homebirth.
We did not transport or even grace the hospital doorway.  During Gavin's
*first week* of life, I received a very lovely baby calendar, compliments of
Nestle.  There were gorgeous photos of babies throughout and, interestingly,
none had bottles.  It came with a "congratulations on your new arrival" card
and I wondered how they knew he had been born.  (I doubt they send these
until the baby arrives because I can't imagine having a stillbirth and
receiving one of these.)  The next day, a package appeared on the front
porch, this time a gift from Mead Johnson.  It contained a huge can of Lipil
(forgive me if I'm out of line naming names here) along with a slick
brochure describing how to wean to more & more bottles since my breasts
would be engorged and how breastfed babies inconveniently stool sooooo much
more than those consuming formula.

I know that the above is not news to anyone.  What *is* very odd to me is
that my baby was not "in the system" and the only information I had given
out during pregnancy was a due date still weeks away.  I called Nestle to be
removed from "the list" and asked the nice customer service rep if she knew
how I got into their database.  She mentioned the usual ways then threw out
a new one...*grocery store purchases*.  That's right...we had to purchase
premie-sized diapers because our little guy was tiny and the cloth ones we'd
ordered weren't here yet.  That is the only way these companies could have
known we had a baby-- we triggered the point-of-sale info in purchasing
premie diapers.  Within days of birth I had the ABM companies at my door.
This is reality...even with a quiet, early (for me) homebirth.

So it's not even safe to buy diapers at the grocery store...

Rebecca DeYoung Daniels, MBA, RD, LD, IBCLC

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