Those of you who sometimes testify in court on bf related matters may be interested in these paragraphs from near the end of the New York Times article today on Tabitha Walrond's conviction for negligent homicide in the death of her baby. The reporter interviewed the jurors after the verdict. All agreed that significant blame went to the unresponsive hospital and to the grandmother, who apparently kept reassuring the mom that the baby was fine. "But in the end, she [the juror] concluded, Ms. Walrond should have known better than to believe her mohter. Defense testimony from a pediatrician who is a lactation expert in Colorado carried little weight with the jury, she added, because the doctor had not spoken to the defendant and had seen the autopsy photographs [in which apparently the child is horribly emaciated] only the night before she testified. "in his summatoin, Mr. Holdman ridiculed the defense medical experts, saying of the defendants, "She could bring experts in from all over the country, but she couldn't go a couple of blocks to a clinic?" This reminds me that what many have written here about being sure that you are speaking in a language and with an authority that your hearers can understand applies not only to moms but to everybody -- in this case including jurors. Showing up and talking without context just wasn't very persuasive to them, no matter how much the expert knew about moms and babies and feeding *in general*. It's also interesting to me that the prosecutor went to great lengths to say that this case was NOT about breastfeeding or "breastfeeding failure" -- and I think that is largely to the credit of the folks, including a number of lactnetters, who have been protesting outside the courthouse! -- but about the mother's responsibility to, at a minimum, head for the emergency room before the point at which the baby dies in the taxi. And there is something to that, I guess -- but it still seems like a prosecution that should never have been brought. Elisheva Urbas, NYC *********************************************** 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