I've been lurking around for a while and occasionally sticking my nose in
on lactnet so I thought I'd better introduce myself. My name is Karleen
Gribble, I live just north of Sydney Australia on the NSW Central Coast and
I am a wannabe breastfeeding researcher and advocate. Like a lot of people
I guess I became interested, then intrigued, then enamoured with
breastfeeding when I had a baby and I learnt all this stuff I didn't know
before. I have just finished a PhD (in horticulture unfortunately) by am
trying my darndest to become involved in breastfeeding research somehow. I
have hope in that I have the same undergraduate qualifications as Prof
Peter Hartmann and he made the switch from agriculture successfully. I have
had this future involvement in breastfeeding research cemented in my mind
in the last couple of days by a breastfeeding ignorance related incident. I
have been a volunteer youth leader in my local community for the past 7.5
years and had a lot to do with teenage girls over that time. Quite a few of
them have had children over the years and we remain in touch. I have tried
my best to make them aware of the importance of breastfeeding and alert
them to the societal expectation of bottlefeeding and dangers of formula
feeding.

Anyway one of the girls had a baby 3 weeks ago. She had a hard time in
labour and eventually had a caesar but when I saw her in hospital things
were going OK, she was breatfeeding and the baby was beautiful. I rang her
last night to check on how she was. She told me sadly that she had to give
upo breastfeeding. When I asked her why her answer was "because my milk
went sour". Questioned for more specifics she described how her milk was
all watery and was obviously not strong enough for her baby boy. She then
described how they were now using the strongest formula available and even
that wasn't strong enough and they were adding rice cereal to the formula.
I was absolutely horrified as you can imagine. The unbelieveable ignorance
she displayed, not knowing what milk should look like, not knowing that
newborn babies will normally want to feed often and it doesn't mean your
milk is no good. It is a disgrace that you can go and buy formula at the
supermarket or chemist it should be on prescription only and then at least
someone should have told her that her milk was not "sour" but perfectly OK
for her baby. This girl fits the picture set out for breastfeeding
disaster: young (18), low socioeceonomic background (lives in a cacravan
with her de facto), fully immersed in bottlefeeding culture, low
educational background. It is just not fair. She never stood a chance.

It is my personal opinion that breastfeeding education when a woman is
pregnant is too late. It also needs to happen far earlier. At age 14 or 15.
Other young girls I am in contact with have become advocates in their
school health/ early childhood classes because they have really hooked onto
the importance of breastfeeding. They teach their teachers. I would really
like to do a study that compared the success in changing ideas and values
concerning breastfeeding in young people using two models, one which simply
promotes the benefits of breastfeeding and another that also looks at the
dangers of formula feeding (ie the "watch your language" model). At that
age young people are determining their personal values apart from their
family. It is a critical time in their lives. We should take advantage of
this important time in their lives.

Sorry for the long post.

Karleen Gribble

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