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Subject:
From:
Pamela Morrison <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 22 Mar 2007 11:23:03 +0000
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Nancy Wight wrote, "The breast is an organ of the human body.  How 
can breastfeeding not be a medical issue?".

Hear, hear Nancy!  I'm a bit late responding, but I've been thinking 
along the same lines.  The health of mother or baby affects 
breastfeeding/lactation and breastfeeding/lactation affects the 
health of both mother and baby.  It's a health (medical) issue.

Furthermore, no matter how much eulogizing there is about the value 
of home birth and unmedicated deliveries, and women's wisdom, 
accompanied by lamenting that if we just let Nature take it's course 
and stopped interfering, both birth and breastfeeding would proceed 
well - or certainly better without all our interventions, I would ask 
everyone to take a look at the stats for the least developed areas of 
the world.  What is the maternal mortality rate where most births 
take place at home?  What is the infant mortality rate where most 
babies are breastfed?  The very worst breastfeeding/lactation 
problems, the worst abscesses, the worst (horrendous) cases of 
failure to thrive that I have worked with, have been with African 
mothers and babies for whom breastfeeding was culturally normal, well 
supported within their families, and everyone had the firm 
expectation that it would go well.

Conversely, my experience is that although birth interventions do 
negatively affect initiation of breastfeeding, they hardly ever 
prevent it to the extent that I read about on LACTNET.  This begs the 
question of whether the main "problem" is not bad births, and 
nipple-confusion, and over-medicalization, but lack of appropriate 
support for breastfeeding (poor hospital practices and inadequately 
trained healthcare providers who are able to dispense out-of- date, 
non-evidence-based medical "advice").

Where are the government regulating agencies who should be DOING 
something about this??  I've just seen a map of the world showing 
shaded areas for breastfeeding rates.  Amazingly, the industrialized 
countries (W & N Europe, N America, Canada, Australia) are blank 
because these countries are somehow not required to report their 
stats on breastfeeding initiation to the international health 
agencies.  How can this be?  Why are the world's health watchdogs 
turning a blind eye to this omission, instead of requiring reports 
from all countries, as necessary health indicators?  My guess is that 
it's because bottle-feeding is so much a part of the culture of 
countries that set international standards that it pleases everyone 
NOT to characterize breastfeeding as a medical matter.  But I think 
it is. I think the use of formula should be rationalized from a 
medical perspective.  And I think we should all speak with one voice 
about this.

Pamela Morrison IBCLC
Rustington, England

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