Dear all:

I'm glad that Nikki posted the tidbit about Harlow's monkeys not bonding through feeding 
- they needed the stuffed toy to be more secure and were never as psychologically whole 
as the monkeys that got the real thing -- a real mom, instead of a stuffed toy.

Even without her tidbit, I still find the "Mom of the Month" advertising for the Freestyle 
pump almost as frustrating as the advertising to get US mothers to donate milk to babies 
of HIV positive mothers in Africa when it was an extremely cost-ineffective approach.  
Locally produced human milk would have been much less expensive and more sustainable 
for the local population. Moreover the fact that much of the donated milk would be used 
for develop a for-profit product was not transparent in the advertising of the so-called 
"good deed".

Similarly the Mom of the Month is one of those so-called "good deed" advertising that we 
need to examine far more closely.  Here's the format:

1) Tug the heart strings with the innocent victim:  Instead of babies of HIV positive 
mothers, we have two orphaned boys (10 and 5 years old) from Russia who can't speak 
English and had "a rough start in life".
2) Create a pseudo solution:  Instead of shipping milk across continents (when human 
milk is locally available) we have the idea that these boys psychological wounds can be 
solved through "bonding with the new baby through bottle feeding".  My husband is a 
clinical psychologist who works with children.  Two adopted boys who are adjusting to life 
in a new country and to a new baby after a "rough start" need far more than a bottle to 
feed to a newborn sibling.  I'm sure my husband could fill up pages about what would be 
far better alternatives to this approach.

But, the marketing will work because who doesn't want to see the lovely picture of these 
two salvaged boys have a new start and chance snuggled up closely with the new baby 
feeding it?  

This firmly reinforces what I think is a bad message "that you bond through food". 

Really the bonding through eating is in the social interaction and contact.  The substitute 
of "food" the product for the process of socially interacting while you are eating leads to 
all sorts of eating disorders. 

But it will probably be a great marketing tactic --- isn't it wonderful that their gift of a 
pump will help those adopted boys?

On some level I find this even more egregious than the unregulated labeling of flow rates 
and claims of colic prevention for most bottles.

Sincerely, 
Susan Burger

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome