I am a former member of the March of Dimes National Office of Volunteers,
after serving for three years as (volunteer) Chairman of the Minnesota
Chapter.  I am every bit as offended as you are about the baby bottle use
in the North Carolina Walk for Babies.

I tried to e-mail the March of Dimes national office directly, via their
website (www.modimes.org) but I had some technical problems.  I have
alerted a friend of mine on staff and asked her to forward my e-mail to the
appropriate people to respond.  I also recommended that the March of Dimes
consider not accepting funds or partnering with formula companies.  They do
NOT accept tobacco funds and there are strict restrictions on the use of
alcohol in sponsorships (wine-tastings for adults only are OK, alcohol ads
at WalkAmerica are not), so there is a precedent in their policy.

I cannot guarantee a response, but I did ask that someone respond directly
to Teresa and give her permission to post on Lactnet.  My personal opinion
is that this unfortunate situation may be the result of a lack of staff
training.  Many of the fund-raising staff are enthusiastic young men and
women who genuinely want to help in the March of Dimes' Campaign for
Healthier Babies.  They do get training in maternal-child health issues
(for example the importance of prenatal care), but obviously not
comprehensive training that would sensitize them to this situation.

Please hold your final judgement until we hear more from the March of
Dimes.  Please remember that they are a major source of funding for
research, education and community programs that benefit mothers and babies.
They have been instrumental in such important advances as the development
of NICUs, screening for PKU, artificial surfactant, awareness of fetal
alcohol syndrome, the use of folic acid to prevent neural tube defects,
heck, they even funded Watson and Crick's DNA discovery.  Feel free to
contact them at the website (www.modimes.org); perhaps it was just my PC
that was having trouble with the link to contact them.

Kathleen Bellis
Penn State College of Medicine
Class of 2002

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