Until such time as donor milk banks are as common as blood banks, there will
be a legitimate use for formula.   I can think of clients of mine over the
years who had to rely on formula because of double mastectomies, severe,
life-threatening post-partum hemorrhage, post-partum psychosis, inadequate
breast tissue to support full lactation, mutilating breast surgery,
accidents, injuries, emergency separations, etc.  Even in Austin, where we
have made the effort to create a milk bank, the milk is prioritized to a
rather select group of recipients, and many of the babies of the mothers
described above would not have qualified to receive donor milk.
Consequently, we need formula, and need it to be as good as it can be.  I'd
simply like to see its distribution and marketing  be ethical.  That is the
intent of the CODE.  Not to banish formula, but to control the commercial
interests and prevent profit motive from interfering with initiation and
maintenance of breastfeeding. There are many mechanisms for doing this,
including making it available by prescription only, prohibiting direct
marketing to consumers, limiting advertising, insisting on truthful
advertising, forbidding gift packs, etc. all of which the CODE addresses. I
acknowledge the ruthless greed that governs the industry, and I abhor it. I
lobby publicly to urge my government sign the CODE.   But babies have to
eat, and not all mothers who use formula use it out of ignorance or
laziness.  Some mothers are forced to use it, and we do need to be mindful
of that fact.

 I sometimes agonize over how little most of us know about the mechanics of
bottle feeding, and how few have studied anything about the oral mechanics
involved in it.  I find it very useful to understand how bottles work
because so many poorly feeding infants come to me on bottles.  You have to
start somewhere moving these kids back to normal feeding (defined for our
species as breastfeeding).  In a practice specializing in unusual
circumstances, one sees hundreds of babies a year whose mothers want to
breastfeed but (for some reason) haven't successfully initiated lactation.
This is the population who, in former times or in other places, would not
survive.  If an infant can't breastfeed, it is by definition, not a viable
neonate.  They aren't not breastfeeding because they are confused; they are
not breastfeeding because they can't make it work.  Some of these babies
can't make a feeding tube work, and their parents don't want to feel further
marginalized by undertaking long-term alternate feeding methods when the
bottle is so culturally acceptable.  So learning how bottles work, and using
bottles therapeutically, and using bottles to help move a baby back to
normal is one (of many) strategies that an LC ought to be able to skillfully
pull from her bag of tricks.

Barbara Wilson-Clay, BS, IBCLC
Austin Lactation Associates
LactNews Press
www.lactnews.com

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

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html