Those of you who sometimes testify in court on bf related matters may be
interested in these paragraphs from near the end of the New York Times
article today on Tabitha Walrond's conviction for negligent homicide in the
death of her baby.

The reporter interviewed the jurors after the verdict.  All agreed that
significant blame went to the unresponsive hospital and to the grandmother,
who apparently kept reassuring the mom that the baby was fine.

        "But in the end, she [the juror] concluded, Ms. Walrond should have
known better than to believe her mohter.  Defense testimony from a
pediatrician who is a lactation expert in Colorado carried little weight with
the jury, she added, because the doctor had not spoken to the defendant and
had seen the autopsy photographs [in which apparently the child is horribly
emaciated] only the night before she testified.
        "in his summatoin, Mr. Holdman ridiculed the defense medical experts,
saying of the defendants, "She could bring experts in from all over the
country, but she couldn't go a couple of blocks to a clinic?"


This reminds me that what many have written here about being sure that you
are speaking in a language and with an authority that your hearers can
understand applies not only to moms but to everybody -- in this case
including jurors.  Showing up and talking without context just wasn't very
persuasive to them, no matter how much the expert knew about moms and babies
and feeding *in general*.

It's also interesting to me that the prosecutor went to great lengths to say
that this case was NOT about breastfeeding or "breastfeeding failure" -- and
I think that is largely to the credit of the folks, including a number of
lactnetters, who have been protesting outside the courthouse! -- but about
the mother's responsibility to, at a minimum, head for the emergency room
before the point at which the baby dies in the taxi.

And there is something to that, I guess -- but it still seems like a
prosecution that should never have been brought.

Elisheva Urbas, NYC

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