I missed the episode the other night but talked with my sister who has
formula fed all 3 of her children. (A case of her own body-self image, she
thinks it is all gross,)

Anyway, her take on the episode was that it was an extreme case of parental
neglect, and the Mother was the one trying to blame it on breastfeeding.
She would turn up the radio or tv just to drown out the cries of the baby.
Neither mother nor father wanted the baby and didn't really have time to
take care of it because they wanted to do their own thing.

She wasn't happy with the way the LC was presented either (because she
knows, from me, how things should be done and what the protocols would
be.) Even if formula feeding, my sisters perception was that this mother
would not have done any more to keep this baby alive. She would have ignored
cries and feeding times, regardless.

So, for her(my sister), it did not reinforce her stance on the side of
formula feeding. Hopefully, many more women were able to comprehend the real
reason behind the death.

I do wish they had presented a better case for the act of breastfeeding and
had let that LC answer the question of babies dying from formula as a YES.

I would like to find out how much the formula companies pay to sponsor such
an episode.  Then, we need to get ILCA, our state associations (like OLCA),
LLL,Taskforce groups, and all of us to put together a type of episode about
the babies who die as a result of being formula fed.  This could be about a
child who dies or is brain damaged from the mother watering down the
formula, anaphylactic shock, respiratory, diarrea, meningitis, however
something could be worked up to show that formula was the biggest
contributor to the death or disability, or that it could, most likely, have
been avoided if breastfed. We need to show the statistics of more formula
tragedies happening, rather than the rare, sensationalized breastfeeding
percentage. And it could be shown how a tragic situation is remedied by
switching to breastmilk.  Donor milk could be positively portrayed in this
scenario and/or the birth mother could then be shown as successfull at
relactating. An array of ideas could be shown in one episode or a 2-parter.

Money, you say?  If we could organize our efforts we could, maybe, pay for
an episode by getting all interested individuals and groups to donate $1.00,
$5.00, $10.00 or whatever, to get our side into the people's homes.  If the
amount is totally unfeasible then I guess it couldn't work, but I'll bet
there are enough breastfeeding advocates out there that could support this
idea.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Cheryl Marian, CLC, CLE
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