This was my first conference....As I walked by Avent and Playtex I shook my
head knowing that this would be a Lactnet discussion to be sure.  Personally,
I took their cups...lots and lots of their cups, not enough to make them
bankrupt..but enough. Wanted to be sure their exhibit cost them as much as
possible.  Taking these things will not encourage me to encourage moms to use
them.  Maybe the difference is just that.  I see the exhibits at a conference
as sort of show and tell...I don't think it means we have to become their
salesperson.  Maybe because I believe in free trade and capitalism, marketing
really does not bother me.  I have no problem with products being marketed to
professionals.  Now, if this conference were for parents as well as
professionals and the products were being sold...humm, that may make me less
happy about it.  I cringe when I see bottles used as representative of
babyhood for health fairs for that reason....but this was not a health fair.
I do understand the concern about bedfellows but have to trust that the line
might have been walked on, but not crossed over.  I will give it more thought
and might decide that the line was crossed afterall.

As for Peter Hartman....Research is not free.  Somehow someway we need to
come to grips with the reality that research cost money and someone needs to
pay for it.  I would much rather that be a company trying to make a product
that helps babies get their mother's milk than a company trying to be sure it
never happens.  The comparison of pump companies to formula manufactures is
really unfair.  The belief that no one should be making money via mother/baby
feeding practices is not only unrealistic, it is hypocritical if you are
receiving payment for your services as an LC.  My goodness, we could carry
that to so many extremes in the medical world.  Why should it cost money for
by-pass or transplant surgeries?  Why can't it all be free?  Well, it would
be nice if the world somehow operated without money and we all ate and had
medical care and housing at no expense too.  But, that is not the reality of
life especially in the USA.  If there is going to be research done in the
field of lactation I would prefer it to be done by companies trying to make
breastfeeding possible and not by companies trying to isolate what they can
patent next to reproduce!! and sell to make breastfeeding less likely if not
impossible.   That said, I am going to repeat what I was told by Peter's
research team members and by Medela ....  The funding of the research was to
understand how the breast functions in terms of production and milk ejection.
 That knowledge would be used to create technology that could duplicate it as
close as possible.  We also get a chance to add to our knowledge of how the
breast functions and add a piece to the science puzzle of human lactation.
We may never need to use a Medela product, but we will still have the
information.
 What about Paula Meier?  Her work has changed NICU care and breastfeeding
for premies...she too is part of the research.  What do you want exactly?
How do you want technology to advance?  How do you want this science learned
about and researched?  This is not just about the art of breastfeeding, this
is about the science of the human breast and mammalian function and this is
not going to be understood without research...and again, research cost money.
 Lots of money.

What I find acceptable at a professional conference and what I find
acceptable to the public at large in terms of marketing are quite different.
I prefer to trust the professional to make decisions based on more than
marketing ploys and to be able to know the difference between advertising and
fact. When you have access to all the information, when you can see, touch,
try all that is available, you have an opportunity to learn about it, make
choices and decisions for yourself based on information.   I consider myself
an adult capable of making decisions (not always good ones, but at least my
own) and don't need to be protected from the "world of marketing". The
difference as I see it between formula companies and their cozy relationship
with the medical world and ILCA getting cozy with pump companies (any and all
of them...not one in particular) is if we get too cozy or the marketing gets
too intense mothers and babies around the world will get to breastfeed!

Not true with formula reps and docs.  I know there are those who don't
believe in any marketing of any products and like to blame the product and
the marketing instead of the professional for choosing to push it, but I
don't see it that way.  The fact that doctors have allowed the formula
companies (and pharmaceuticals in general) to sway their care for their
patients is not the fault of free enterprise and marketing, it is the fault
of the doctors for forgetting first do no harm.  I do not hold formula
companies responsible for wanting to get rich, I hold the medical world
responsible for making it so easy.  However, this is not the same attitude I
have about marketing to the public.
And I believe the Code was meant to prevent companies from profiting ...not
from the choice to breastfeed or not... but from being a reason the choice is
'not'.  And to be sure mothers had the ability to choose with all the
information they needed without practices that made breastfeeding difficult
even when that was their choice.

I don't think we can say no one should profit from the choice to breastfeed
or not unless we don't want to be a paid profession.  In reality, LC's profit
from a mother's choice to breastfeed.  If mothers chose to turn to formula
every time there was a problem, then LC's would not be needed.  But, we have
created a profession that wants to help mothers choose to keep breastfeeding
by helping them succeed at it.  Isn't that "profit" due to "choice"?  Does
not our very existence as a source of help influence the decision to stop or
continue?  Perhaps the slippery slope is not so slippery at all in the "paid
world".  Perhaps we just need to keep our guard up and be sure that we see
the difference between helping to make breastfeeding work and helping to make
it not work.

Best,
Pam MazzellaDiBosco, IBCLC   FL, USA

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