Being one of those people who found it necessary at the time to feed my
child formula or watch him die, I don't think it was a sin to have made the
choice I made at the time, knowing what I knew at the time, and having a
baby with many problems and having a poor milk supply -- most of you know my
story concerning Peter.  At the same time, I must comment about this statement:

>ABM is a food product, not poison

ABM is a food product, but anything that also results in a higher risk of
death and illness for the child surely qualifies as a poison as well.

Breast milk is not just FOOD.  It is medicine -- natural medicine that
protects the child from many of the diseases it will face.  Breast milk
provides normal immune development, normal brain development, normal growth,
normal bonding.

Thus, ABM is way more than just a replacement (however good or bad) for the
nutritional value of breast milk.  ABM prevents the child from developing
normally.

I know that many of you must, by virtue of your jobs, be focused on
increasing the incidence and duration of breastfeeding in the mothers you
work with, including through the use of pumps and supporting mothers who mix
feed.  I still don't think, in the long run, that that is the route to go to
becoming a baby-friendly culture where breastfeeding is the norm.  I'd
rather have current moms bottle-feed with formula than "breastfeed" using
bottles -- the trend I saw in Utah last spring of more and more moms pumping
their breast milk and giving it to their babies in bottles (because they
were convinced of the superiority of breast milk, but had no intention of
letting their babies actually SUCK on them, I mean *really, how gross*,
babies are SUPPOSED to be fed with bottles) -- I think this is where pumps
and bottles for "breastfeeding" babies leads us.  And I think it is a big
step away from the path towards a truly breastfeeding-friendly culture.  I
think it would be more effective, in the long run, to work on changing the
culture, even if it means some babies right now end up on formula earlier,
or from the very beginning.

Just my humble .02 worth, as always.


Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Nutrition
Texas A&M University