Thanks, Veronica, for the article about Tabitha Walrond. What I find REALLY
interesting is the bit about her charges of marijuana possession. This is a
real good example of gratuitous information cleverly stuck in there to color
the reader's perception of the entire case - and, incidentally, of teen
mothers and BFing.

So say you weren't a BF "expert" like those of us on lactnet - it would be
very possible to read the article up to that point and be essentially
sypathetic to Ms. Walrond. After all, she was a mother whose baby died, and
it seems to me totally obvious that even a not-too-well-informed reader
could see that this baby died as a result of NOT feeding, not BFing or
formula fdg; if the baby had been fed, it wouldn't have died. But then you
come to the bit about the marijuana, and you think "Aha - well, that's
different; the girl's a drug abuser! Well, she brought this entire tragedy
on herself, and she didn't deserve to have that baby even if it had lived."

Maybe I'm exaggerating for effect, but this is just such an outrageous bit
of non-pertinent "information" that it's totally clear to me that it's just
included to manipulate. It insinuates a link to the main story that may or
may not be there, or may or may not be relevant.

What connection is there between marijuana use and BFing? What does the
research show? Do we know that, even if one thing had anything to do with
the other, marijuana has a negative effect on BFing, or on babies? You
wouldn't know from the story! The research doesn't bear that out
necessarily, but that's irrelevant when it comes to manipulative journalism;
all that's necessary is to pop this little tid-bit in, and our whole
perception of the mother is affected.

I'm not advocating pot smoking during BFing - I just think that everybody
needs to be aware of how dependent we are on which bits of "news" are fed to
us and in what context. Caveat emptor! It doesn't just happen w/BF-related
stories - this just happens to be a good example of how much we are affected
by the filters through which we receive our "information".

Cathy Bargar, RN< IBCLC Ithaca NY

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