The only time I ever spent in a NICU was 3 weeks in May-June of 1985 when my son Peter was a patient at Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis. I was very pleased with the care he received there *except* for when they ran out of my milk to give him because they had accidentally given a lot of my milk to some other child in the NICU! I agree that with very premature babies or babies with different sorts of conditions, oxygen is the number one concern, and of course the babies must be kept warm, and some of them need antibiotics or immediate surgery, etc. Some, like my son, can't take any food by mouth at first and must be hydrated and fed via intravenously. But as soon as ANYTHING can go in by mouth, it should be breast milk -- not glucose water, not plain water, not formula. If the mother can't provide breast milk, then breast milk from a milk bank should be available. I agree that if the baby is dead, it doesn't need breast milk. But if the baby dies of NEC because of getting formula, it won't need breast milk. Formula harms babies -- the evidence is clear. There is really no excuse for NICUs not to have banked human milk available. I am *not* blaming individual NICU nurses -- we have heard on this list over the years that sometimes if you complain too much, you get fired. There is an entire huge beaurocracy of nurses and doctors and administrators who set up the rules, the protocols, the standards, the attitudes for whether a NICU will do whatever it takes to make sure premature and sick babies get the breast milk they need -- or whether they won't. But I can't agree that the choice of how to feed the infant is EVER a low priority -- it may mean the difference between life and death, and impacts the health of the child throughout life. A NICU that was dedicated to "best practice" would have dedicated IBCLCs to help mothers breastfeed, and dedicated social workers to spend time with grieving parents convincing them that it is absolutely essential for their baby to get breast milk -- if not the mother's own milk, then another mother's milk, REGARDLESS of how they had planned on feeding a healthy, full-term newborn. They would also have places for the mothers to pump, and pumps, and places for the parents to stay on site. I've heard a number of women over the years say "I hadn't intended to breastfeed, but the baby was born early (or with a problem) and the neonatologist told me I HAD TO, so I did." If a baby is capable of taking formula by mouth, then he is capable of taking breast milk by mouth. If the breast milk needs calorie fortification, then it should be with human milk fortifier made from human milk, not cows' milk. Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Anthropology and Nutrition Texas A&M University _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html