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Subject:
From:
Celina Dykstra <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 7 Feb 2013 20:29:59 -0500
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It is, indeed, jumped upon when we use terms like "devastating" though I would hazard to guess that the repercussions of not breastfeeding, 
for some parents, are indeed devastating. An upper respiratory infection that lasts a few days, may not. E coli or another organism that results in death of the 
infant.. Yes. When we look at statistics, and we separate the individual human experience from the scientific observations and 
numbers and percentages, we can use very objective language, but regardless of statistics, each infant individual infant is the only one that matters
to their parents, and each of us makes our decisions based on the "one", the only one that counts in our life and our moment and our subjective point of view.

I would hate to be the person that said to a mother "statistically your child is only marginally better off getting breast milk", of course, I am biased
being that adult woman in her mid-fifties with hypertension, hypothyroid and perhaps insulin resistant.. Yes, I was formula fed. It is devastating
to have a body that does not function normally knowing that human milk could have made all the difference.. Especially if you saw what I eat and 
how I have lived... (Maybe I would have had more fun kicking up my heels and smoking and drinking!!! Just kidding..) and it really bites that my husband and children, all breastfed, can push the envelope with barely a ripple... Though, seriously, I am very pleased that they are strong and healthy, relatively speaking.

Realistically speaking, there will always be those who will attempt to discredit what is known about human milk and its species specificity. We would
think it absurd if we started feeding any other mammal another mammal's milk from birth.. Horse breeders the world over would be up in arms protecting their
investments...

I harken back to the amazing story of a young mother in our community many years ago who still breastfed her 3rd child after sustaining a traumatic brain
injury and in spite of being given medication to cease milk production while she was unconscious for days. Upon waking she insisted on a breast pump 
and proceeded to feed her baby exclusively at the breast. Not 4 months later, the older two children acquired E Coli. The baby, though exposed, never 
showed any signs of the disease. Her eldest almost died, he was in total organ failure. When he was finally able to be tube fed, the medical team decided
to try his mother's milk as he could tolerate nothing else. He was 5 years old. She had been pumping and sending her milk home via greyhound bus, so she 
pumped some more for him and he was able to not only tolerate it, but began to improve, though it was many months before he could come home.

We moved a year later and the only time I saw them was one day when we had taken our
youngest daughter to the local pool for rehab and they were carrying their child in while we were carrying ours out.. The two "miracle kids".. I had read 
many stories before this happened, documenting the important protective benefits of human milk, but when you see it first hand, it is so much more 
powerful of a message.  So now, when I read the nit picking about language, I remember the statistic of "one", the 100% that survived in this young family's home.
It's the ony statistic that means anything to these parents. 

Celina Dykstra, IBCLC, LLLL  - realizing in this upcoming New England snow storm, it is the breastfeeding babies that are assured of warm and tasty milk regardless of possible power outages. 

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

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