Dear Friends:
The new AAP purported policy about crib death can be seen as an example
of abusing the mantle of authority and science worn by physicians. This new
'policy' is another wedge between mothers and babies. It also appears that
many of the names on the studies cited in support of this new 'policy' are
getting money somehow from industry, maybe indirectly but still getting money.
There are lots of ways that industry can give money. They can build a
new lab for a scientist. They can award grants. There are lots of ways to give
money. There is Internet evidence of this.
These doctors are saying that mothers are bad for babies. We are told:
Don't sleep with them, don't suckle them to the safe, sweet bliss of sleep. It
is said that mothers are killing babies, or will do so, if left to their own
(hormonal) devices.
These doctors from the AAP committee are combining deaths from
suffocation, congenital anomoly (often undiagnosed, as in the example of heart
defects) and overlying along with sudden unexplained death. They are calling all of
those deaths together "SIDS".
The doctors on the AAP committee refuse to accept that milk flow makes
everybody sleepy, including the partner, when they are all in the same safe
bed. Safe bed means: No waterbed. No drunk or stoned. Baby just in a diaper. No
tobacco.
Linda Smith reminded me that 16.5% of 'sids' deaths occur in daycare
settings. What of that? When are we told that daycare is risky for babies?
Or what about tobacco, relegated to #4 on the recommendations. "Advise
parents not to smoke....." blah blah blah. Why not say "Smoking tobacco kills
babies"? They say it in Canada.
Why aren't they making a prohibition against tobacco? The evidence is
iron-clad against tobacco in any form, first hand, second hand, third
hand.........you name it!
This whole event has turned my world upside down, and feels so crazy to
me. I am not adjusting well.
I am starting to wonder about doctors. Please remember that I know and
love wonderful doctors, and the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine! We have
wonderful doctors here on LACTNET, just for starters.
However, I am starting to wonder how safe doctors in general are for
mothers and babies. In the US, a first time mother has a 26.1% chance of having
her baby cut out of her. That is more than one in four. That was the
cesarean section rate in the US in 2003. Where's the incentive to go to a doctor if
your chance of being cut open is increasing, year by year, to one in three?
Or, go to the doctor and be induced for "medical" reasons. In this
case, medical means "the doctor said to do this." Along with induction comes a
strong possibility of having a iatrogenically premature infant. (The March of
Dimes has identified induction as a big reason for national prematurity.) I
never see a woman that hasn't had synthetic oxytocin used in her labor
except maybe once a year; even the ones that manage to start labor on their own
get this chemical boost once they are admitted to hospital..
Then an article comes along about chilling babies.
I have observed, as an intensive care nurse, the benefits of chilling an
injured brain to save injury. I know that there are babies that can benefit
from this life saving action. However I worry, based on my past experience,
about how this new concept will be integrated into our lives.
As an example of how the public generalizes from the specific, I have
been taught that "some women should sleep on their left sides when pregnant if
their baby is growing slowly or they have high blood pressure or threatening
to deliver too soon."
I have seen that changed in the mind of the public, to "every pregnant
woman must sleep on her left side". Almost every group childbirth class poses
this concern, because the women are sick of staying on their left sides and
they are afraid they will cause something dreadful if they sleep on their
other side or on their back.
I fear that the popular mind will latch on to the idea that chilling
babies is good, because the specifics will be forgotten, and kangaroo care will
become extinct.
Call me paranoid, maybe I am. It has been a rotten week here in the US
for mothers and babies and breastfeeding.
I apologize to all for my reflexive, reactive, non-thinking post.
And thank you for your patience.
warmly,
Nikki Lee RN, MS, Mother of 2, IBCLC, CCE
Maternal-Child Adjunct Faculty Union Institute and University
Film Reviews Editor, Journal of Human Lactation
www.breastfeedingalwaysbest.com
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