Dr Jack
Newman is an American Paediatrician of
renown who publishes very widely on BF. You can find many very user-friendly articles by him on-line. Links to his website and Facebook page can be found at the bottom of this article released by him in response to an article by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
We hope you find this as helpful and interesting as we did ourselves.
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There is an article in Pediatrics (journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics) published on line this past weekend that purports to show that in babies who lose 5-10% of their birth weight and given a little bit (10 ml at a time) of formula while in hospital, will more likely breastfeed exclusively. This article will be in the print version probably in June. Please share this post as the more people hear about how wrong this article is, the better.
I am shocked and disheartened that a journal like Pediatrics would publish such an inane article. First of all, as I have posted here before, % weight loss is a meaningless concept, most especially since so many women receive large amounts of intravenous fluids while in labour and during the birth. Because of these infusions, the baby is “overhydrated” and naturally urinates more and loses more weight. It is true, though, that when the mothers are swollen up with this fluid, the baby may have difficulty latching on and thus does not get milk. This already disqualifies this study from any serious consideration except that it has gotten a huge amount of press. But there is more, with only 40 mother and baby couples in this study, what does it mean, especially when the mothers in this study are said to be very motivated to breastfeed. What would it mean in a hospital where few mothers are really motivated to breastfeed, where they are going “to try breastfeeding?”
Therefore, the idea of giving formula to the babies is completely misguided. First of all, as I have already said, the mother and baby may not need any help, the baby may be doing fine. One needs to observe the baby at the breast and see if the baby is latching on well and actually drinking from the breast. See the website and find the video clips that show babies (several younger than 2 days of age) drinking at the breast. If there is a concern that the baby is not drinking well, then the first thing is not to give formula but rather to help the mother and baby with the breastfeeding. It may be a surprise to the authors of this article that it is actually possible to help mothers and babies breastfeed in the first few days without supplementation (be it formula or donor milk). Women are constantly given the message that their bodies are failing. Something is always better than the mother – medical equipment, incubators, nursery, syringes with “just a little bit” of formula, scales.
There are two things about any supplementation, be it donor milk (as suggested by Dr Alison Stuebe who critiqued this article in her blog) or formula:
a) the message that is sent to mothers that tells them “yes, we were right all along, your baby was indeed starving and you didn´t have enough milk”
b) it provides a “solution” that prevents mothers from getting real good hands on help and it prevents them from learning what they really need to learn to have confidence in breastfeeding.
There is nothing worse than “proponents of breastfeeding” who believe in solving problems with breastfeeding by giving formula. Those are the ones that confuse the mothers the most.
The quotes in the article are so typical – the mothers are worried about the baby starving for the first three days, they say. So what do they do? They help them by “weighing the baby and the mothers get to see the weight dropping and dropping”. That is fantastic practical and psychological help.
And one of the last sentences is fascinating too: “their study at least suggests that formula may be a viable option – even for women who are inclined to dismiss it”. I also love it how they say their results may not be applicable elsewhere because they live in a community where women are eager to breastfeed and 98% initiate breastfeeding. So surely they must find ways to give these babies formula
https://www.facebook.com/DrJackNewman/posts/191865550964499
http://www.breastfeedinginc.ca/
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