I thought you might be interested in knowing that Dr. Jack Newman testified
at the inquest I have been working on since January. He was called as an
expert witness on breastfeeding, and the Coroner said "If any counsel are
thinking of challenging his expertise, let me tell you now, he is THE
expert." It started off smoothly, but then he was asked specific questions
about what should have been done to get breastfeeding established for this
mother, and (of course) he was highly critical of what was done (and not
done) by the nurses and others involved, and the lawyers got rather
agitated. It was very refreshing for those of us who get tired of medical
people refusing to criticize what other medical people do or have done.

One exchange I enjoyed: The lawyer for the nurses asked "When the baby was
put to the breast for the first time (after 11 days of nothing but bottles,
mother only pumping sporadically and only able to get a few drops at the
pump the last two days), the nurse said the latch was good and the baby was
swallowing. You can't dispute her professional opinion, can you?"

Jack: I can certainly doubt it.

Lawyer: You didn't see the baby nurse, so you can't dispute the nurse's
professional opinion that the breastfeeding was going well, can you?

Jack: (clearly fed up at this point) Of course I can dispute it - the baby
DIED.

I think it was very educational for everyone in the courtroom to hear what
he had to say, and to clear up some of the considerable misinformation about
breastfeeding that has been given over the past few months.

Teresa Pitman
Guelph, Ontario

(Also known now as "the blonde" - that same lawyer asked Jack if anyone had
talked to him about the inquest, and he said 'Teresa Pitman' - when she
asked who that was, he pointed to where I was sitting and she responded "The
blonde?" Everyone laughed, and I seem to have been given a new nickname.)

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