Quite right Kathy.  Most people who work for child protection services
are hardworking people doing a great job in a thankless situation with
a lot of heartache and stress (sounds like breastfeeding support).
They are definitely not idiots.

However, sometimes the child protection services are capable of
incredibly stupid decisions (the case in Syracuse a few years ago is a
case in point).  I know of several cases in Ontario that are almost as
appalling.  Of course, this is true of any institution.  But the child
protection services just have incredible power.  They can take away a
child from a family on "suspicion of abuse" and there is no redress,
no checks or balances.  By the time the nursing child gets back to the
mother, the baby is weaned, and that compounds the tragedy.

In one case here in Ontario, a young native woman decided she would
give her baby up for adoption.  But she changed her mind a few days
after the baby was born.  But it was decided that because she was
unstable (as documented by her changing her mind) and on welfare, the
child would go into foster care.  The mother could visit but was
expressly forbidden from breastfeeding.  She finally got the baby back
when he was 6 weeks.  She successfully relactated.  This is a case
about which I have first hand knowledge.  There may be other
circumstances I am not aware of, but I know this woman from her first
baby and this move was nothing if not stupid and arbitrary.

One of my patients actually happened to be a caseworker for the
children's aid.  She arrived when the baby was 18 months because the
baby was not eating much and was mostly breastfeeding and not gaining.
Exactly a situation in which I have seen many mothers.  At least now,
they are sometimes sending mothers and babies to me, so we can
forstall taking the babies away.  I asked her about this situation
once we got the child gaining weight, and if she had ever been
involved in such a case where the child was apprehended.  She was
horrified by the similarity between her case and some she had been
involved with.

There is a dentist in Ontario who reports any mother to the children's
aid whose baby has cavities and she is nursing after a year of age and
refuses to abide by his order to stop.  I have been involved in
several of these cases.  Instead of just laughing it off, the
children's aid takes (or had been taking--I haven't heard of any for a
few years) these complaints seriously.  No babies have been taken away
or any orders to desist from breastfeeding as far as I know, but the
parents are involved in a nightmare from which there seems to be no
out.

Enough.

Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC