At 10:51 AM 2/24/01, you wrote:
>Last night this show featured a story about a small cult whose members
>believed they got direct instructions from God.  One instruction was a
>particular 10 month old child was to not receive any solid food, only
>breastmilk.  I'm not sure about water.  Anyway, reference was made that the
>mom couldn't purchase any breastmilk.  The child died.   The mom's lactation
>status was not explained.  Did she even try to breastfeed?  Was she
>lactating?  I admit to drifting off to sleep at times during the show but I
>don't think these issues were explored.   This show was not about breastmilk
>or breastfeeding but it (breastmilk, breastfeeding) was again faintly damned
>by association.   Carla

Actually, it was Dateline NBC. I watched the whole thing. I thought their
handling of the breastfeeding part of the story was very good. They only
mentioned it when the story demanded (it was pertinent, because these
people decided that they had been directed to only allow this baby to
breastfeed...something about his mother being vain about her appearance,
but I don't think he was still nursing (they only said that he was eating
solids at this point) and his mother was 7 months pregnant). I think it was
clear in the piece that the point was that these people were veering away
from sane, normal behavior by obviously failing to feed the baby anything,
even when they knew he wasn't getting any breastmilk. Dateline treated it
the same as if the cult had decided to give the baby nothing but bubble
gum. They kept journals detailing that the baby got nothing, not even
water, and exactly how he wasted away and died. Sick. Anyway, sad that
breastfeeding was involved in this in any way, but it was treated
respectably by Dateline.

Cheri
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