While I find the topic distressing it is some comfort to see that my virtual living room is filled with people who are as aghast as I am about this.

Virginia, the most upsetting thing to me here is that Norway weathered the decline of BF initiation nearly everywhere else in the world at the time of industrialization, urbanization, aggressive marketing of breastmilk substitutes, and even institutionalization of childbirth. Nearly 100% of women had initiated breastfeeding from 1860 on. There has never been an artificially fed generation before, but I think we are seeing the beginnings of one now - two generations after the rest of the industrialized world and just a decade or so after Norway branded itself as 'world champions in breastfeeding' (no kidding, a lot of people here still actually believe that myth).  In the last five years, when women have EVERYTHING going for breastfeeding societally, the pediatricians have suddenly jumped on the blood sugar bandwagon so that pre-lacteal feeds of formula are almost more common than undisturbed skin to skin until the first feed. 

Baby-Friendly in Norway seems powerless to do anything about it. The evaluation process is now done by self-report, on line. Fox guarding chicken coop, IMO. 

I plan to start a discussion at work on the human rights violations inherent in depriving 1) women of any choice about how their baby is to be cared for if it falls into any one of the ever increasing number of high risk groups targeted for being given the milk of an alien species before getting a drop of colostrum from its own mother and 2) children of the right to have a chance to make a normal shift from intra- to extrauterine life without having their chances of being breastsfed jeopardized.  May need to involve the legal dept at the hospital on this one :-/

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway
where it's past my bedtime but just like in the old days, LN is still keeping me up. and fired up

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