Here is my reply to the times online article!
Marusia Kachkowski, PHN, IBCLC
St Paul, MN
July 6, 2005
Dear Professor Frank Furedi,
I just had the unpleasant experience of reading your unsupported
medical claims that “breast may not be best” in the following times online
article by Alexandra Frean:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1680758,00.html
There are several alarming, misleading, erroneous and incomplete statements
you are making:
“Women of our mothers’ generation were free to make the decision to bottle
feed and then to get on with their lives”
Have you forgotten how our mothers and grandmothers were persuaded NOT to
bother breastfeeding 30 years ago when formula company employees wandered
hospital halls at their will, misleadingly dressed in lab coats and nursing
uniforms promoting their products as superior to human milk, and gave
postpartum mothers just enough free samples to dry up any human milk supply
before ensuring their business for the next 9 months? Luckily we have
better awareness of the harm that was done, the unethical practices of
denying families’ accurate evidence based medical information and the
generations of good breastfeeding help that were lost within families. We
have at least developed some standard of how to accurately give information
for informed decision-making, rather than misleading advertising of fat
healthy smiling babies portraying a false ideal of health assurance to
parents. No “breastfeeding zealot” aims to rid the world completely of
artificial infant milk. Advocates want families, who could otherwise
healthily provide human milk, to get accurate information to make an
informed choice, and not be persuaded by unethical, false advertising (that
carried on for decades before our time and got us into this mess of
nutritional mediocrity).
“But nowadays women are put under enormous pressure to breast-feed and
those who do not are made to feel very guilty. That undermines their
confidence as parents.”
Does discussing how to limit second hand smoke exposure and use of car
seats undermine the confidence of the parents you are referencing? Would
you evade a rational discussion about the well established health hazards
of second hand smoke exposure with parents, as to not make them feel
guilty?
“Denting women’s belief in their maternal capabilities in this way by far
outweighed the potential health hazards of babies drinking formula, as
opposed to breast milk… because it could make mothers over-anxious.”
Will you personally be guaranteeing the health risks of artificial feeding
will outweigh the mental anxiety for every parent you refer to? If the
artificially fed child is suffering greater incidence of diarrhea, colic,
cancer, diabetes, meningitis, necrotizing enterocolitis, otitis media,
pneumonia, RSV, allergies, asthma, eczema, obesity or sepsis, will you be
measuring the level of parental anxiety related to the care and treatment
of these conditions? How will you then measure the guilt of not
breastfeeding is quantifiably greater than the anxiety of managing these
adverse health conditions?
“Breast-feeding has become politicized. Instead of having a grown-up
debate, we assume that unless a woman breast-feeds, she is an irresponsible
mother. As a result, women feel the choice about whether or not to breast-
feed has been taken away.”
Irresponsible mother. Your words, NOT the words of a Medical Doctor,
Nurse, Lactation Specialist, lay counselor or any knowledgeable
breastfeeding advocate trying to give accurate infant feeding information.
This language is your own propagation of a long held “guilt argument”
started by the formula industry decades ago, to create a smoke screen from
any rational infant feeding discussion. The prime goal of any trained
lactation professional is to ethically give accurate medically-based
information to mothers, to support her ability to feed her child with out
commercial misdirection and false reassurance. What a confidence booster;
that she does not need any commercial entity profiting off her perceived
inadequate milk supply and that she is everything her baby needs!
I am sure the Infant and Dietetic Foods Association thanks you for the
press you have created in their favor. I am also suspicious you may be
under their payroll to tote such opinions. Perhaps you have a significant
family history of artificial feeding, and take the accurate information
plight quite personally “because you (or your children) turned out just
fine”. We know more now. Our grandmothers did the best they could with
the little to no information we had then. By offering the most up to
date information, we finally have the medical evidence to back up
breastfeeding practice to help families reap the benefits for the health of
their families. Now we must work to clear the accusations of guilt seeking
foul play, to actually enable families with sound infant feeding
information rather than clouding the issue with irrational emotion charging
vocabulary such as yours: an ancient guilt argument that long disabled any
accurate information sharing. I encourage you to review the substantial
medical knowledge and real sociological confounding issues related to
lactation failure before you mislead more families, vulnerable to your
unfounded claims of formula safety.
Sincerely,
Marusia Kachkowski, BSN, RN, PHN, IBCLC
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