"However, since it is not going to happen, I wish they would spend
funds creating milk banks for moms to have access to the only true substitue
for their own milk--another mother's milk.  How about equal funding for milk
banks?"

who is this "they" we are talking about here? formula companies?

i don't think we can force formula companies to stop doing what they are
going to do by appealing to their finer natures. i can't imagine we would
trust any research they sponsored. we have to reduce their market. formula
companies respond to an increase in breastfeeding by doing what profit
companies do best, which is expand their markets and expand their product
lines (follow up formulas, cereal with formula powder in it, yuck).
apparently tobacco companies have done the same by building up markets in
other countries when smoking declined in the us, and promoting other
products, like "smokeless tobacco."

<< I believe because the investment, mentally and
 financially is with infant formula. >>

this statement  is EXACTLY the crucial point in our discussion. and who is it
that is invested in the formula-feeding mentality? we cannot expect the world
at large or our governments (i think this is really the "they" referred to
above) to change its thinking until nurses and doctors and lactation
consultants stop giving out formula, stop using bottles and pacifiers, stop
NOT telling parents the truth about formula. the rest of us, who don't
believe this is ethical, are just wasting our time.

when i hear mothers tell me about their hospital experiences (hey, i
remember, you all keep telling me the mothers are all liars or something like
that, funny how they don't lie or "misrepresent their experiences" or
"misunderstand" when they praise the hospital staff?), when i see things as
they are routinely done at hospitals (yes, i do get in them once in a while
and i am watching), when i am the FIRST person who ever mentions the risks of
formula, then i know that the majority of people who do "breastfeeding
counseling" or are called "lactation consultants" are the very ones who are
helping promote formula use.

i guess i had best not even mention WIC again.

and the resistance to a world-wide milk banking system? i can't figure this
one out, myself. i know the reasons but it begins to sound like a resistance
to world-wide blood donations. some sort of superstitious belief system that
blinds people to medical fact.

you know what is worse than living in a place where there is no milk bank?
living in a place where there IS a milk bank and seeing that other "lactation
consultants" won't ever think of referring to it. to hear a locally famous LC
give a case report and pause when telling what kind of formula the baby got
(not on oral feeds) and turn to the audience and say "well, of course we
couldn't use donor milk." why not? why not? why was i the only one who even
wondered? they all seemed to know why not. and the reason was: we KNOW
formula is okay, we don't know about that other stuff.


an RN IBCLC i know tells me, now carol, i know you don't believe in formula
and bottles, but really, they aren't so bad. you have to feed the baby, don't
you?

its unspeakable. why should we worry about what companies are doing to their
formula (and i didn't intend for it to sound like an endorsement of the
martek/dhea stuff, that's no worse than other tactics, just that they are all
hideous) when the supposed health professionals that are supposedly promoting
breastfeeding are the VERY ONES who do the best work for the formula
companies - and for free!

when will "everyone else" change? not until "we" change.

carol brussel IBCLC

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