Hi Kathy,  Wow, I sure was not aware of this connection of MOD and formula companies.   Our NH MOD always helps sponsor the NH Breastfeeding conference with a donation.   Small potatoes when you think of the money they may get from ABM Co.   But at least we are "recycling."  And maybe  this bottle stufff is not a national policy, but an unthinking policy.  Perhaps we should launch an education campaign.
The group that bothers me is Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies which has a national newsletter that I receive which almost never mentions breastfeeding. I am often annoyed by their constant emphasis on immunization, when my feeling is that probably morbidity is much more influenced by not breastfeeding.  I wonder what you think?   Michelle Scott, RD, IBCLC 
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From:   Kathy Dettwyler[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Saturday, May 03, 1997 4:58 PM
Subject:        March of Dimes

Hi Pam and everyone else!  March of Dimes accepts BIG MONEY from formula
companies -- always has.  The usually have giant plastic baby bottles with
the March of Dimes logo on it at the entrance to our local Wal-Mart
Superstore when they're doing money drives.  I always stop and explain to
them very carefully (keeping Peter, my son with Down Syndrome in front of
me) why I will not donate any money to them as long as they use a baby
bottle as a symbol.  I explain why the use of formula is anti-thetical to
the avowed purpose of March of Dimes.  And the poor little-old-lady
volunteers at the table just sit there and stare at me with their mouths
open.  Of course, the local March of Dimes also asked me for several years
in a row if I would let Peter be the poster child -- because he's so cute --
and I said "Absolutely not, since the March of Dimes wants to prevent the
birth of children with Down Syndrome, and since the only way to do that
currently is prenatal diagnosis and abortion, and we think Peter and people
like him are much better off being alive with Down Syndrome than dead . . .
we decline.  Again, several years in a row I had to explain this carefully
to the new person in the office.  March of Dimes is NOT one of my favorite
charities.

Glad to hear your son is doing better -- any diagnosis??


Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Nutrition
Texas A&M University