Hi Querida & everyone,

My own memories of working in the Northern Territory (1992/ 93) are that
we would often pick up 2-4 babies a day with acute diahorrea &
dehydration. Most often, these babies had been bottle fed cola. If not,
always ABM, and often a combination of both (I don't recall ever seeing a
breastfed baby in this condition).

Most (but not all) of these babies came from remote/ semi-remote
communities with no santitation/ clean water, where absolute and relative
poverty was endemic, and where food security (incl. breastfeeding) was a
complex issue not solvable by unidiemsional or "standardised"
interventions - and certainly not solvable without input from the
communities concerned.

I seem to recall that all of this would occur in spurts, where we would
have days upon days of seeing dehydrated babies from all over the place,
and then nothing for a few weeks. I don't know if this still happens and I
don't know whether it has been written up in a journal anywhere.

(Hmmm. there might be a research project somewhere in here for someone
currently living in the wonderful NT :0)

Out of interest, I have just returned from working on a project in rural
New South Wales. I asked an Aboriginal diabetes health worker who I met,
whether his clients would be more likely to breast or bottlefeed their
children/ grandchildren. After some thought, he could not recall a single
instance where one of his (adult) clients had a breastfed child/
grandchild. To his memory *all* babies in families he worked with were
bottlefed - all sorts of substances. I don't know what - if anything -
this means.

Cheers,

Alice
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