In my opinion, this man is taking the viewpoint that breast milk and
formula are a choice between equivalents.
You are one voice in support of breastfeeding at your hospital. Every other
RN there who gives out the marketing sample bags and sticks a bottle of
formula in a baby's mouth, or puts bottles in the crib drawers is
supporting and encouraging formula feeding. I'd say it was more than
balanced in favor of formula use.
There are two benefits of formula:
Baby gets a full stomach, and baby gains weight.
Well, often too much weight, as in the current obesity epidemic.
If I remember right, calves double their birth weight in 47 days, while
human babies normally double in 4-6 months. Do we WANT babies to double
their BW in 47 days?
As to the IQ potential, as in reaching the best possible because of
mother's milk...
...ever see a smart cow? ...ever see one at a Mensa meeting? ...ever see
one win a Nobel Peace Prize? ...ever see one finish high school?
I know you can find long lists of "benefits" of BFing. Example: 101 Reasons
to BF.
How about the LaTrobe University web site? Do a Google search on "LaTrobe"
and "milk", without the "" marks. Bookmark it & check back 1-2 x a year for
updates. How about the National Ad Campaign? How about the Lund University
studies that discovered cancer cell apoptosis in the presence of breast
milk? How about the Policy Statements from the AAP, the AAFP, AHWONN, NANN,
ADA, and many other professional associations? LLLI? Academy of BF Medicine?
While he is challenging you to prove human milk is best for human babies,
HE should also provide medical evidence in the form of peer-reviewed
studies, with NO financial conflicts of interest, that modified baby cow
milk, or modified baby soybean milk, is better for any human baby than it's
own mother's milk. You can have a paper war. Actual full studies - not just
the citations. You win!!
Someone (on Lactnet?) described an excellent analogy that went something
like this:
Suppose your hospital became so cash poor that they ran out of baby
t-shirts. A nearby hospital that was solidly in the Black volunteered to
help your hospital out by donating 5000 baby t-shirts. But when you open
the boxes, you find they say "I'm a happy ABC Hospital Baby!" Do you use
them? No? Why not? A t-shirt is a t-shirt, right? The financial interest
of the donating hospital is irrelevant. Isn't it?
This is exactly what your hospital (and mine) do to all their own LCs when
they give out the formula marketing bags to every single mother at
discharge. The hospital is actually paying their nurses at their hourly
wages to give out advertisements and samples that create financial benefits
for another entity: the formula company.
Remember the old trite saying: There are none so blind as those who will
not see.
And this internet joke from the restroom bulletin board: "Who was the
first person who looked at a cow and said to himself, 'I'm going to yank on
those things and drink whatever comes out!'"
Phyllis Adamson, IBCLC, RLC
Glendale, AZ
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