Dear Everyone,
I apologise for being off-line, but at times the workload goes from
ridiculous to utterly impossible, and there is no choice but to drop
indulgences such as Lactnet.. Now that I don't have to worry about ALCA
News until the December issue, I am again switched back on. If you had
things you really wanted me to know about, please let me know privately,
As indeed, some of you have. A couple of things to pick up on belatedly:
Rhoda Taylor was quite right to say that sensitisation via dummies and
teats (not nipples or pacifiers, please: we are a part of the problem in
using such language) was probably common, but the amazing thing is that
this possibility is rarely mentioned in commentaries on latex allergy,
which include the deaths of patients who experience anaphylaxis..
A good article on Latex Allergy was published in the latest ALCA News, but
like so much else barely mentions infant feeding. The Canadian
Allergy/Asthma Information Association has useful information about this:
Rhoda, can you locate an e-mail address for them? They quote Finnish
research proving that latex in dummies has caused eczema in infants: a Dr.
Turjanmaa from Tampere University in Tampere Finland presented this data in
1993 at a US meeting.
Rhoda said that <If I remember correctly [MM] has been
warning about this for the past 5 plus years. I remember articles in the
early ALCA Newsletters.> True. In fact it's probably closer to 15 now. It's
not only latex either. Whatever we put into newborn babies' mouths when
they're very small: if the product is not human, it is quite likely that
some children will develop sensitivity to it, and symptoms from that
sensitivity, if not in the first generation, certainly in the second
generation of children gestated in first generation bodies made sensitive
by infancy artificial feeding.
Silicon is an inert hard substance and I imagine cannot be made into
flexible feeding devices without being processed and plasticised in all
sorts of ways. IMO it's only a matter of time before we discover that these
chemicals too are problematic. Breastfeeding Matters described the US saga
of carcinogenic nitrosamines in teats and dummies, and how long change took
there, so as not to incommode American industry. We learn through these
myriad uncontrolled experiments; but do parents know their children are
guinea pigs?
Hence I was delighted to read that
>The FDA has appointed Diony Young, editor of the Birth Journal, as consumer
representative on their O & G Medical Devices Advisory Committee, and to
act as a consultant to the Center for Devices and Radiological Health.
She can be contacted at 43 Oak St, Geneseo NY 14454 USA Tel 716 243 0087.<
In my view it's about time there was a very informed and pro-active
consumer presence on such committees, looking at the safety of all baby
products including teats, bottles, dummies, and soft plastic infant toys,
many of which are obviously dangerous (try smelling the plastic, or letting
water or milk stand in teh bottle and taste it later.).
The latest ALCA News also has a photo feature article about unsafe bottles
on sale in Australia, USA and NZ. Healthworkers have expressed shock at
what is being sold. Some of these are inexcusable, and most of the worst
are produced by US companies (in some Asian country, but the company
address is US) and sold around the world by stores like Toys R Us.
Concertina bottles, baseball bottles, self-feeding bottles.... ALCA is
mounting a coampaign via ACOIF to get these products banned. Maybe Diony
can do that in the US and save us all the trouble??? It should be an
offence for grossly, obviously unsafe bottles to be made or sold by US
companies in the US or elsewhere. Britain does have a standard for bottles
and teats, but Australia doesn't as yet: we're working on it..Maybe we can
do this on a global scale from the beginning?
Of course we are about promoting breastfeeding, but we ignore the other
infant feeding objects in our culture at our children's risk.
Maureen
Maureen Minchin, IBCLC
5 St, George's Rd., Armadale Vic 3143 Australia
tel/fax after March 1: 61.3.95094929 or 95000648
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