Ilene said, with respect to her Medela rep:

 

<<She also asked me to look at both the Medela webpage and the Ameda web page and compare...she sees little difference.>>
 
There is a huge difference: one is compliant with the WHO Code and the other is not. 
 
<< She is a wonderful person who has given much to the breastfeeding community both locally where she lives and people call her and come to her with problems and with free product to WIC offices,LC's etc.>>

 

Her wonderfulness truly is not at issue here. Let’s all please understand this, people - take it from me, as the daughter of an old-style pediatrician. I grew up working in my dad’s private practice office. Formula reps were wonderful people - truly. They were friendly and gave much to the community, etc, just like Ilene’s Medela rep. My dad (who is now 88 years old and one of the finest men I have ever known, not to mention a great father) cared a great deal for his patients and was a wonderful doctor absolutely beloved by his patients and their families. He was kind, gentle, very intelligent (still is sharp as a tack), highly respected by his colleagues, and he saved lives - for decades.

 

But when my first-born stooled yellow, seedy, watery stools he proclaimed that the child had diarrhea and ordered me to put him on Pedialyte for 24 hours.

 

When he ate every 2-2.5 hours instead of every 3-4, he proclaimed that while “breast is best”, if I’d been making enough milk he wouldn’t wake up to eat prior to 3 hours.

 

It is possible to be wonderful and wrong at the same time.

 

It **undermines** our efforts to promote breastfeeding, truly it does, if we reduce these important issues to whether or not the people on either side are nice, or charitable, or well-intentioned. To do so undermines our efforts because it sidesteps the issue, because it takes our eye off the problem, and because it allows us to engage in an “us vs them” mentality, thereby allowing us to blind ourselves to the times when WE ARE DOING THE SAME THING. One cannot fix a problem that has not been correctly identified. Niceness (which is important!) and great research are not the issue. Wanting more babies to get more breastmilk is not the issue. Code compliance is the issue.

 

This isn’t us versus them. This is us versus ourselves. I still believe what (I think) I said over a year ago now, namely that this comes down to us answering one question: what matters more to us - our ethics or our favorite breast pump company?

 

If the answer is the former then our path is clear.  Medela, a company that for YEARS was Code compliant and could very very easily be so again should they choose, now is NOT Code compliant and has no intention of ever being so again.

 

If our answer is the latter then what needs changing is our ethics…..

 

Regina Maria Roig-Romero, BS, IBCLC, RLC

Sr. Lactation Consultant

Miami-Dade County Health Dept WIC/Nutrition

Breastfeeding Program

 

● 7785 NW 48 Street Suite 300 ● Miami, Florida  33166 ● Phone:  (786) 336-1333 x16219 ● Breastfeeding Helpline: (786) 336-1336 ●  Fax (786) 336-1302

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