Dear Jack,
I agree completely. Prevention and early recognition are the key to this
condition. Community support and education should exist to recognize
feeding difficulties early and rectify them in a manner supportive of
breastfeeding. This requires an adequately trained primary care team (only
because society seems to have lost the skills) who sees families that need
to be seen when they need to be seen. It requires communication both ways
between community and institutions.
With every dehydrated infant a debriefing could occur to identify the
improvements that can be made in the system. Such feed-back is invaluable
in developing policy. The idea is constructive criticism, not a witchhunt.
We've got lots of work to do!
Khalid
Khalid Aziz
Memorial University of Newfoundland