in today's local newspaper...
 
 
 
 
Breastfeeding too rigorous: judge TheSpec.com - CanadaWorld -
Breastfeeding too rigorous: judge 
Custody ruling upsets mom

Kenyon Wallace
Toronto Star

(Apr 28, 2009) 

A Collingwood-area mother says an Ontario Superior Court judge erred
when he ruled she used breastfeeding to gain the upper hand in a custody
dispute.

Jennifer Johne, 36, claimed her desire to continue breastfeeding her
34-month-old daughter Kai did not prevent the girl's father, Carl
Cavannah, 43, from having access to the child.

"For me, it's not about breastfeeding. I just feel that a child needs
stability and needs one place," Johne told the Toronto Star yesterday.
"It's not as simplistic as me being some kind of fanatic."

But in his 53-paragraph ruling, granting joint custody to Cavannah,
Justice Alan Ingram wrote Johne's unwillingness to give a timetable as
to when the breastfeeding would end restricted Cavannah's exhaustive
efforts to play a larger role in his daughter's life.

"(Jen) believed strongly, through medical advice, in the merits to Kai
of breastfeeding; however, the breastfeeding has a secondary impact upon
Carl in that it is used as an excuse to restrict his access," Ingram
wrote. "Jen continues this practice not because of literature that
suggests that it is important to breastfeed a child after the age of 2,
but rather because there is no literature suggesting that it is not in
the interests of the child to continue this practice."

Johne and Cavannah began dating after meeting at a wedding on Aug. 27,
2005. In mid-October, Johne discovered she was pregnant. At the time,
Johne lived in Collingwood and Cavannah in Toronto. By November,
communication had broken down and the couple stopped dating.

Kai was born on June 13, 2006.

In the year and a half that followed, Cavannah, then a teacher with the
Toronto District School Board, commuted to Collingwood to visit his
daughter. He eventually quit his job, sold his house and moved to the
Collingwood area to be closer to Kai. He also began making voluntary
child support payments.

Calls to Cavannah and his lawyer, Thomas Dart, were not returned.

Since the December 2008 ruling, Kai has been spending three-and-a-half
days a week with her father, during which time she is not breastfed.
Cavannah now works as a supply teacher.

The Children's Law Reform Act stipulates the mother and father of a
child are equally entitled to custody of the child. Justice Ingram ruled
Johne did not accept this provision, pointing to an e-mail she sent to
Cavannah on Sept. 9, 2006: "A baby belongs with its mother, and if you
had an understanding of the needs of a fully breast-fed baby and truly
had Kai's interests at heart, you would not be bringing the subject up
again," she wrote.

Johne said the e-mail was sent in response to Cavannah's requests to
take the baby for extended visits, including a weekend when Kai was one
week old.

"Nature is set up to protect children by needing them to nurse at
frequent intervals. It keeps them closer to the mother and ... that's
just the way nature is set up," Johne said yesterday.

Ingram suggested Johne use a breast pump and provide the milk to
Cavannah to bottle-feed Kai. Johne said she tried two kinds of pumps,
both of which did not work.

Breastfeeding specialist Dr. Jack Newman says toddlers taken overnight
from the mother before they are weaned off breastfeeding could suffer
emotional trauma.



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