Hello all, Virginia writes: "About 202,000 households in south-east Queensland are without electric power, and some areas have no mobile phone (cell phone) connectivity Just to update (Monday) - it is now 238,000 households without electricity." ~~~ Virginia, My heart goes out to all those families. Here in Brooklyn, In New York City, NY, USA it's been since end of October, after our storm, and there are still thousands without heat, some also without power, in this now frigid winter. In Dec, six weeks out the # was still near 10,000 just in one area in NYC(the Rockaways.) I know the number is lower now, but still in the thousands. On Tuesdays, even now, my friend and I take a shift to drive out cooked, hot food for between 70-130 people without. The pick-up "station" at the church cooks for 1,000 every day. I remember thinking, I know there are dangers/challenges of artificial feeding and needing to express milk for a non-latching baby when there is no access to hot water, no access to heat and/or electricity, but feel very unprepared to actually help anyone who was not breastfeeding well when the storm hit. People still have problems, even if they live in areas not hit by the storm,with no functioning hot water heaters in crotchety old buildings, or withholding landlords, and they need to safely prepare artificial feeds. In the time between these disastrous events and storms, I hope here we can make progress in helping more moms and babies to get breastfeeding relationships well established in general. In your part of the world, you have many of the world's experts on infant feeding in emergencies. I hope your leaders and communities make use of this. It was heartening to hear about the mom who said she needed nappies but not food since she was breastfeeding. I didn't hear that here. Anyway, thinking of you and your part of this globe we share. Peace, Judy Judy LeVan Fram, PT, IBCLC, LLLL Brooklyn, NY, USA [log in to unmask] *********************************************** Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html To reach list owners: [log in to unmask] Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask] COMMANDS: 1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail 2. To start it again: set lactnet mail 3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet 4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome