Here is my letter! It's very long, so skip if you want! Dear Oprah, I feel that I must comment on your show which aired here in Sacramento, Ca on 3-1-96. It was about pregnancy and what happens to your body after the baby comes. I was extremely disappointed at the attitude of the guests, and yourself. Also, as a woman who usually has her inforamation correct, you allowed a lot of misinformation to be aired to the public, many of whom are first time pregnant moms who believe everything that your show says. Had I watched this show two years ago, I would have been one of those to believe everything that came out of the show. However, I have a lot more education and knowledge now, and feel that your show did a great disservice to women and babies around the world. My background is, I am a Certified Lactation Educator, I counsel breastfeeding moms for WIC, and am in training to become a Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). Let me give you some example of the missinformation from your show and the harm that this information can cause. The first thing is that you siad you advocate epidurals, and the guests all seconded that attitude. Well, it has been proven that drugs during labor can have minimal to profound negative effects on newborns. Babies that have these drugs ion their systems are sleepy, and do not breastfeed well, if at all. Babies without drugs in their systems can breastfeed well, and are alert and responsive to those around them, especially mom. A sleepy baby is not responsive. This sleepyness results in less breastfeeding which, in turn, results in jaundiced babies, which results in sleepy babies who do not breastfeed well, if at all, which results in possible hospitalization and separation from mom, the introduction of Artificial Baby Milk in a bottle, the interruption of breastfeeding, possible nipple confusion in the baby and a lot of work by the parents to save the breastfeeding relationship. As you can see, this chain reaction is not a good one, and can be avoided if women are given accurate information: Drugs during labor DO affect the baby. Regarding the information on breastfeeding. The only good thing I saw was that all the women had breastfed their babies. However, pumping milk was portrayed as humiliating and painful, neither of which is accurate. If mom has a good quality pump, pumping is very comfortable. From experience, 4 months of pumping, I know this to be true. I work with moms who pump their milk for their babies who are in the hospital or who cannot breastfeed due to genetic defects such as a severe cleft palate, and they feel as I do. It is neither humiliating nor painful. The woman who pumps her milk for her baby is giving her child the best possible food in the world. The author of the Girlfriends Guide to Pregnancy also gave out incorrect information. She said that it was the hormone Pitocin which calms a mother and relaxes her while she is breastfeeding. Not true. Pitocin is a chemical made to be like the natural hormone Oxytocin, that causes uterine contractions during labor, and it is used to induce labor. The hormone that causes a woman to relax and calm during breastfeeding is called Prolactin. Breastfeeding was made to look like a chore and something that should be given a try but , hey, if it doesn't work out, that's ok. Well, it is NOT ok. There are a lot of hazards to feeding infants Artificial Baby Milk (also known as formula). More ear infections, diarrhea, colic, SIDS, allergies, cancers, illness, colds, malnutrition, are just a few. Did you know that babies fed Artificial Baby Milk (ABM) in third world countries and here in the US die more frequently from things like malnutrition and diarrhea than do exclusively breastfed babies? They die from malnutrition because either their moms do not know how to prepare the ABM correctly or they dilute it to spread it out because they don't heve enough money to buy what they need. I digress a bit. Another bit of misonformation came when the Author said that at six weeks your breasts still hurt. If your breasts still hurt at six weeks, then something is wrong. If breastfeeding is well established, then there is no reason, save from something being wrong, for your breasts to hurt. And if the mother has chosen not to breastfeed, then her breasts should be well involuted (dryed up) by that time, with no dicomfort to the mom. Also, the comedienne mentioned something about her breasts being the size of bowling balls when her milk came in. Listening to the story of her labor and delivery, I am really not surprised. She herself said her baby was high on Demerol (like that is a good thing) and wasn't breastfeeding well. Another reason for no drugs during labor. Had her baby been alert, and had she been breastfeeding frequently, she would have experienced some breast tenderness and possibly mild swelling due to her milk coming in, but not the bowling ball situation she described. It has been shown that frequent breastfeeding after birth significantly reduces engorgement experienced by so many women. Engorgement that prevents the baby from latching on to the breast to breastfeed is not "normal" and should not be treated as a "normal" occurrance that all women go through. Breastfeeding information needs to be accurate and up to date. There is so much incorrect information out there that the Lactation Community is trying to correct, that to have a show like your give out the wrong information is a set back for us, and makes our jobs that much harder when trying to educate the uneducated in the realities and facts of breastfeeding. Regarding Lamaze. A "Hype"? How could you allow such an untrue statement to be said? The fact is that prepared childbirth helps hundreds of thousands of women through their labors. Women learn how their bodies work during labor and how to help their body do it's job the best way possible. Also, Lamaze, the Bradley method and other prepared childbirth techniques teach a mom how to relax through the contractions, control her pain and conserve her strength for pushing the baby out. Lamaze is not a hype that makes women feel bad about themselves if they don't take the class. I am still amazed that the Author of the book said that. From personal experience, the contractions I "breathed" through (a technique taught in my Lamaze class) I made through with no problems. The contractions I didn't breathe through were the most excrutiatingly painful things I have ever felt. I still felt pain when breathing through my contractions, but it was made much more bearable because I was focusing on what my body was doing and staying as relaxed as possible, rather than focusing on the pain that I was in. I fear that this show trivialized breastfeeding, Lamaze and normal natural childbirth. Your guests were portrayed as "experts" who knew what they were talking about. In fact they gave a lot of wrong information, and only gave the stories of their situations. I was surprised that no disclaimer was made by your show regarding this fact. So many young mothers out there will listen to what these guests said take it as the gospel truth. No mention was made as to who to contact for information regarding breastfeeding or childbirth, Lactation Consultants were not mentioned, La Leche League was not mentioned. Oprah, I would really like to see you do a show about breastfeeding and childbirth with real experts, who know what they are talking about, on the show to give the correct and accurate information on these topics. There are many of us out here who would love to come to your show and give the world a great education on breastfeeding the importance of breastfeeding and all the benefits of breastfeeding. Please give us a chance to repair the damage that was done on March 1. We need the women of the world to know the facts about breastfeeding, not the opinions and incorrect assumptions and information of peopl who are appearing to be "experts". Sincerely Yours, Janet Simpson, CLE Sacramento, CA (916) 381-8816 PS I am a real fan of yours, which is why I took the time to write this letter to you. If I didn't care about the information and your credibility, I wouldn't have bothered. JS