Thanks, Jennifer, for the heads-up on Jennifer Coburn's column in the San
Diego Union Tribune! Following is the text of a letter I sent in response:

"Congratulations to you for publishing Jennifer Coburn's excellent column
entitled Linking Health Risks and Infant Formula (6/9/99!  This intelligent,
timely, and well-written piece addresses, in a non-inflammatory and factual
manner, an approach to infant feeding that has been referred to as the
largest mass experiment in infant feeding in human history, the widespread
use of manufactured artificial baby milks. Human milk, like all other
mammalian milks, is species-specific; it meets the exact needs of our human
infants, and is perfectly tailored to promote optimal growth, health,
intelligence, and development. Presumably, cow's milk does the same for baby
cows, but as the basis of the sole food fed to human infants for the first
few months of life, it falls far short. And that is assuming that it is
manufactured, stored, prepared and fed "safely", which we can see by the
number of infant formula recalls over the past 17 years cited by Ms. Coburn
is unfortunately not the case.

Breastfeeding is often touted as providing babies with "advantages", such as
improved health in the early months of life and even life-long, and
"increased" intelligence of up to 8 IQ points. This perception gives the
impression that breast milk and manufactured formulas are "almost"
equivalent, that (as the ads themselves are required to state) "breast is
best, but..."  artificial baby milk is almost as good, and that
breastfeeding is an extra frill in which mothers who desire the experience
may indulge themselves. It's hardly surprising, given this view of
breastfeeding as something special that women may choose to "experience",
that breastfeeding is least common among those very families whose children
need its "benefits" the most - those growing up in less
economically-advantaged families, those who are poor or non-white and
least-educated or born to younger mothers or in single-parent households.
The truth is that breastfeeding is the norm, the gold standard which all
manufactured milks strive unsuccessfully to meet. It is not that breastmilk
is "superior"; it is that all other foods, including so-called infant
formulas, are vastly inferior. In what other arena of life would we accept
so willingly the almost-as-good, especially for our children? If your child
needed to have her appendix out, for example, would you happily trot off to
a practitioner who was represented as being "almost as good as a surgeon" or
"most like a surgeon"? Even if this non-surgeon's advertisements read "If
your child needs surgery, a qualified surgeon is best...but if you find it
inconvenient to see a real surgeon, ******* will do the job almost as well."
I don't think so!

Babies need breastmilk. In the end, it is as simple as that. Thank you for
publishing Jennifer Coburn's excellent article; she presented important
factual information without hysteria, without the manipulative drama that so
often surrounds the issue of infant feeding, and without invoking the
dreaded G (for Guilt) word!

Catherine Bargar, RN, IBCLC (International Board Certified Lactation
Consultant
Ithaca, NY
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