In answer to the question about whether or not there are experts that do promote breastfeeding in emergency conditions, yes there most certainly are!!! I used to work nonemergency conditions to develop nutrition programs for a blindness prevention organization that would be locally sustainable rather than short term food distribution. The primary focus was to prevent nutritional blindness by improving vitamin A intake. In reality, we were actually focusing on preventing a much larger problem than the blindness. Improving vitamin A status reduces childhood mortality rates in areas of vitamin A deficiency by up to 34%. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that colostrum and breast milk are absolutely crucial sources of vitamin A for infants that have not yet weaned. So this was a big part of our strategies and that of other NGOs that focus on developing programs that are locally sustainable. Breastfeeding promotion is a huge component of most international nutrition programs, though as other have posted (e.g. Pamela Morrison on the situation in Zimbabwe) HIV and fear of transmission, rather than a rational look at HIV-free survival rates for infants has taken a tremendous toll. Although I did not directly work on refugee programs, I did work with the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that did do this type of work all the time. It depends very much on the NGO how well they focused on breastfeeding promotion as a component. The better NGOs do hire an expert that has an MPH with an emphasis in nutrition, or an RD, MS or PhD in nutrition. I have not run across many IBCLC's doing this type of work because these program often focus more on food and peripherally on the breastfeeding. The UNHCR (United Nations High Commission on Refugees), uncless they have radically changed their policies in the 5 years that I have been sliding out of international work, did have policies that support breastfeeding in emergency conditions. Unfortunately, the press tends to be extremely ignorant about these issues. I still remember beating my head against the wall during the first Gulf War over the reports of bombing the baby milk factories. I remember spending quite a bit of time explaining to a CNN reporter about why this was probably a good thing to have happened given the lack of sanitation in the refugee conditions in Iraq - all to no avail. I also had the misfortune to sit through a CNN interview (about Somalia) where they seemed to be more interested in finding out whether the refugee expert partook of the local stimulant and asked about osteoporosis (what a nonsequetir for an emergency setting) than in reporting anything substantial about nutrition. Best, Susan Burger, PhD, MHS, IBCLC, RLC *********************************************** 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