Hi Everyone, Got a copy of this which is a summary of a Nestle Sposored Conference at Johns Hopkins (5th Annual National Conference on Advances in Pediatric Nutrition. Chairman of Neonatology forwarded it. Cover states article on "maintaning breastfeeding" - no such article inside. Editor notes the "benefits of breastfeeding" and how it is "the best way to feed a baby". HA, HA, HA! Once you get to the articles however, it is anything but breastfeeding positive. I encourage all of you to get a copy if you can, because it truly is an outrage. I know this will have and is having an affect on how physicians will manage near term breastfed infants. When physicians are fed this information, in this way and by these people, NO WONDER ( yes I am yelling!) we see the amount of formula use that we do, as I had recently posted about. I apologize in advance for the length of this post but I wanted to share with you comments from an article contained in the publication who is a Chief of Perinatal-Neonatal Medicine at a New York Hospital. LIMITATION OF HUMAN MILK "Human milk is not always available....not all mothers can produce enough...even with the best lactation support.... But the major concern with breastmilk is that the nutrient content is insufficient for the premature infant. VARIABLE COMPOSITION....Human varies from day to day, even in the same women, In particular fat content....therefore calories....is extremely variable. Composition changes over the course of the day and even changes from he beginning to the end of a single milk expression.... LOW NUTRIENT CONTENT......levels of certain nutrients, most significantly calcium or phosphorus are too low in breast mik to supply the needs of the premature infant......increased chance of rickets......and high serum alkaline phosphtase is associated with linear growth delays. Other nutrients are affected by how the breast milk is handled..... vitamins....can be destroyed by exposure to air or light, fat can be affected by being passed through feeding tubes.. or by being transferred from one container to another. Sodium levels decline as breastfeeding increase....premature infants who are fed breast mik can be at risk for hyponatremia. FEEDING AFTER DISCHARGE:WHAT THE STUDIES SHOW ...by 18 months post birth breastfed babies remained smaller than either of the formula groups...Breastfed babies were also smaller at 9 months of age raising the possiblity that breastfed postdischarge preterm infants may require nutritonal supplementation.......more data are needed to understand what is optimal growth in the post discharge period." (AMEN!) Truly amazing that some of the unique properites of human milk, can be discussed in a way to make them seem scary, unsafe and downright hazardous and certainly adding to the epidemic of thinness in our society (TIC). But then why should I expect anything different! Again, I understand that at times high calorie formula MAY be needed, but the author did not give enough discussion as to exactly under what conditions they might be. If I were a physician "scanning" the article I would get the message that ANY preterm infant should have this wonderful stuff out of a can, that is so much more reliable and appropraite than mothers own. Yes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Thank you for allowing me a soapbox moment! Again the publication ---- Freedman M, Nugent J, Nutritional Insights: Advances in pediatric nutrition. Nestle USA/Rogers Media. December 2002. Letters of interest could go to: Rogers Media 261 Fifth Avenue 8th floor New York, NY 10016 _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail *********************************************** 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