Feed the baby? FEED the MAMA

I was outside working on my yard, when I started thinking about my work as an IBCLC a few years ago. The mantra was "feed the baby," and it is probably still considered the IBCLC priority. I absorbed that thought at a Conference and had no reason to question it. It was on top of the list when I did home visits--feed the baby, feed the baby. As time went along and I became more experienced, I began to question whether that should be the top priority. No, I wasn't into starving a baby to "make" her or him breastfeed. But I had some real doubts about the use of infant formula, when breastfeeding "appeared" to be not working. It became particular difficult, when the health care provider was recommending infant formula for insufficient weight gain. Yet, the baby was gaining albeit slowly, and not according to the charts. When I was a practising IBCLC, donor milk was out of the picture--no milk banks in the State.

This morning I began to think that perhaps our profession ought to consider a new mantra, "Feed the Mama." By feeding the mama, the infant gets fed. Mothering the mother so that a mother has time with her baby. Our society needs to "Feed the Mama." I started thinking about the mothers I visited for breastfeeding problems. I think of the young mom who had a c-section who was scrubbing her kitchen floor, when I knocked on the door. She had her baby's clothes in the sink, washing them because she had no washing machine. She was struggling with breastfeeding but had no support system. No one to say, "Lie down. Rest, take what time you have and give it to your baby." How could she figure out breastfeeding? Who would take her clothes to the laundry mat? Who would cook her meals? I could say to her rest, take time with your baby. But we both knew that was a cruel joke. There was no one to do for her, to mother her so she could mother her baby. Another mother I visited had no privacy, she lived with a number of people. And during my home visit, various people came in and out of the apartment. She had her boyfriend put up a blanket, to give her privacy so that she could feed her baby. She never relaxed because the door was always opening and closing. Her living conditions and her powerlessness to control her living space made breastfeeding a challenge.

How do we protect breastfeeding? We protect the mother. Yet, in the USA, little is done to protect the mother. Economically, many mothers feel under the gun because they have to go back to work asap. So time, time for baby--you have to be kidding. Mama has no time. No time to relax, no time to take a bath, no time to cook, no time to eat, no time, no time.

I did a home visit with a teenage mother of a premature baby. Her boyfriend's mother was staying with them and she was mothering the mother. In fact it was the boyfriend's mother who had called me and asked me to come by. She was cooking meals and giving the new mom lots of information and support to breastfeed. It was an easy home visit. All they needed was reassurance that everything was OK and it was. I saw the teen mom and baby some months later, and the baby had gained alot of weight. So much weight that her pediatrician wanted her to start formula because he believed that breastfeeding was making the baby fat. Her support was gone and she succumbed to the belief that the medical "expert" knew more about infant feeding. She was a teenager and it was just amazing to see how far she went with breastfeeding. I met another teenage mother who breastfeed her infant for 18 months. These young woman contradict our notion that teenage mothers aren't interested or can't breastfeed. But both teenagers had adults willing to mother the mother (and not so surprising both adults involved with these teenagers were at one time La Leche League members, neither were leaders).

In childbirth, we know that mothers do better in labor, with female support--the doula, midwives. Breastfeeding, likewise, needs the same kind of mothering. Feed the mama.

Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

Black box warning

Wyeth has a recent patent that is about the need to reduce the adverse effects of infant formula by 20-50%. So why don't we have a black box warning on cans of infant formula?? "The Surgeon General's Warning: Infant formula feeding is hazardous to a baby's health. It may cause diarrhea, vomiting, dehydration, disease, cancer, and death." The industry has been trying for years to correct all their mistakes by new and improved formulations, yet we still have a product that is risky. And now we have the added unknown risks of genetically engineered infant formulas. We still have a general public that believes in the safety of this product. Why for heaven sakes do mothers have to have a prescription for donor milk but mothers don't need a prescription to buy infant formula? Why aren't mothers being adequately warned of the risks? Why do breastfeeding advocates skirt this issue? They skirt the issue by calling the risks of infant formula, the risks of not breastfeeding. Heaven forbid we address this issue head-on, we might offend someone. No one seems to be afraid of offending smokers--"smoking kills." Hey, I know smokers and they are perfectly healthy. This is a democracy, smokers have rights. It's a free country. All these issues and more, and yet at some point in time, most people began to understand the health risks of smoking. Why is formula-feeding any different? Why do we accept the ill health and death of formula-fed infants? I also wonder why we are accepting of the high infant mortality rate of our black infants in this country? Shouldn't we be up in arms about this? Genetics, my blankety-blank....no this is about poverty and lack of information caused by discrimination. Society makes its choices. This society has chosen to reward the pharmaceutical/infant formula/dairy industries. No questions asked. These industries wage a public relations game that muddles the picture. Add to this, human milk researchers who are paid by industry, yet clearly support breastfeeding. How much of our research on infant feeding is politicized? How much is white-washed to not offend? Isn't it time we had a black box label on infant formula?

Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

Endangered species: the suckling mammal

Suckling mammal sounds like a song or a poem written by a biotech engineer during a lull in watching his petri dish or his micro scope. I thought mammals were animals that nursed their young. So suckling mammals is rather redundant. On the other hand, we do have non-suckling mammals. We have created them. We have infant formula for kittens and puppies because well, you know....they really don't want to do that, that, that primitive, instinctual stuff. Actually many female dogs and cats are prone to not enough milk. And well they prefer a choice. Liberation from mammalian captivity, just ask Nestle's Purina....

Silly me. See what happens when ya read infant formula patents. The words, suckling mammal, snared my mind and danced upon my funny bone. Before I knew it, I had to write it. I thought about my Neeko, my cat who nursed her babies until they were bigger than her. For shame, Neeko, nursing your big baby-children. Neeko hasn't negotiated the grocery store aisle and seen the great kitten formulas--even has DHA and ARA. She does watch TV and stares at the computer screen. So she could be a well-informed consumer. Instead, she seems caught up in grooming and nursing her babies...and chasing anoles and biting their heads off and leaving them at the front door. She shares unlike the dog, who eats everything in sight. Now he got the canned puppy milk cause he became an orphan at an early age. We call him Fat Boy, the not-so-lean eating machine.

Silly me. Sidetracked again by the animal farm in my house. Let's get down to the nuts and bolts of the suckling mammal. "There is a need for a nutrient for the manufacture of a nutritional composition for suckling mammals which promotes an intestinal flora pattern similar to the one present in mammals fed by their mother." Thank you Nestec (Nestle). That is patent # 7666830 called "Nutritional composition preventing bacterial overgrowth." Now the grand entrance of the miracle component, a protein hydrolzate. Don't ask, I don't know, and don't care to know about their miracle. It is suppose to prevent necrotizing enterocolitis and septicemia. Obviously, previous infant formulas have failed to prevent these bacterial diseases. Of course, the suckling mammal doesn't seem to have this problem. But where oh where is the suckling mammal?? Please Nestle, tell me where is the suckling mammal?? Endangered species??

Wyeth has a better patent called, "Methods for reducing adverse effects of feeding formula to infants," patent #7651716 published this January of 2010. They are going to reduce the side effects of their infant formula by 20-50%. Ask me how? They are going to make it more like human milk by increasing the levels of alpha-lactalbumin and tryptophan. Ya didn't know that infant formula had side effects did ya? Not written on the can. Of course, I haven't bought infant formula since......1982 and if I had only known then what I know now. But back then it was the new and improved SMA and we had heard by good authorities (medical, I believe) that this was a safe formula. The child now adult survived but as a baby she threw alot of that stuff up. It was the inspiration to relactate and it did set me on the road to breastfeeding advocacy. So thank you Wyeth.

The nonsuckling mammal needs arachidonic acid or so they say. Yeah, you remember the ARA to the DHA, the essential long-chain polyunsturated fatty acid? This is from Martek Bioscience (they have a bunch of these patents on DHA and ARA). This one is called, "Method for production of arachidonic acid," patent #7666657. Their goal is to produce the amount of arachidonic acid that "approximates the concentration of human milk." Once again, Martek touches the touchy subject of genetic engineering this component. "It will be obvious to one skilled in the art that mutant microorganisms of the present invention also include arachidonic acid-producing microorganisms that can be obtained by genetically-engineering microorganisms to produce increased amounts of arachidonic acid." They have been writing similiar statements since 1992 in their patents on DHA and ARA. This is a company that was founded by genetic engineers but interestingly enough they say they are not genetically engineering DHA and ARA. What should the consumer believe? That these substances are just algae and fungi that hang out in the ocean or under some log? And yes we will give it to the nonsuckling mammal. We do have bolder companies regarding the production of arachidonic acid for infant formula. E.I. du Pont de Nemours (patent # 7588931 called, "High arachidonic acid producing strains of Yarrowia liploytica) just states they will be using a "recombinant" oleginous Yarrowia yeast cell for the production of arachindonic acid and the primary purpose of doing that is for infant formula. Recombinant is something genetically engineered. Why are we doing this? Because the suckling mammal is an endangered species.

Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

The illusion of a safer infant formula

We are a society that believes that infant formula is a safe substitute for not breastfeeding. We believe it because we are told to believe it. We are told that infant formula is only unsafe in developing countries. The safety of infant formula in developed nations, like the USA, is never questioned. When we look at infant mortality rates in the USA, we discover that it is the poor and black communities that have the highest infant mortality rates. (two-three times the rate of the white population) And not so surprisingly, we find that it is the poor and the black mothers who are the least likely to breastfeed their babies. The connection is there between how babies are fed and the infant mortality rates. But our society has chosen to use the power of public relations and place the issue of infant feeding as one of women's liberation and choice. We cannot tell women that their "choice" will lead to an infant's increased risk of disease and death. Who would believe that anyway? Women don't need prescriptions to buy infant formula but they do need prescriptions to buy donor milk. Death certificates do not say that a baby died from lack of breastmilk. They die from various diseases: pneumonia, septicemia, SIDS, gastroenteritis, diarrhea. And who would believe that breastmilk would prevent that from happening? Well, maybe parents need to read a few patents written by the infant formula industry to understand what the industry knows about human milk. The industry knows that infant formula is a risk for all infants. It is the basis for the continuous quest for a safer infant formula. That quest over the years, has resulted in infants being the guinea pigs to a variety of synthetic substances. It has resulted in a number of deaths and injuries because we do not truly understand the limitations of infant formula. Nor do we seem to understand that not all infants can tolerate those synthetic variations. Yet, we continue onward with this quest for a fake breastmilk. Now we have genetic engineering and the quest is intense because it is coupled with the belief that genetic engineering can duplicate the real substance. Duplicate? Or is it just another synthetic imitation? What will the future hold for those infants sustained on substances created by the corporate world?

We are spending enormous sums of money on the creation of a safer infant formula. We are using up water, oil, electricity, air quality to create an unnecessary food product. And to top that waste of resources, we dump the containers and plastic pieces used for that product in landfills. Yet our society is convinced that women want to escape the prison of breastfeeding and have a choice in how a baby is fed. But what if choice is just a public relations scam by the corporate world who wants to make profits. What if choice is just a way to obtain cheap labor (poor women's wages are always lower than poor men's wages)?

As a past LLL leader, I always delighted in the awe of a young woman's first realization that she helped grow that baby, not Mead Johnson, not Nestle. She did it. She sustained life by breastfeeding her baby. It's a powerful and transforming moment. And maybe that is what the corporate world is so afraid of and why discussions of choice has become the only discussions. Such power, the power of not being dependent on the corporate world for the well-being and safety of your infant is liberation. And the corporate world is mighty afraid of that kind of liberation.

Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

Milky Way Festival-part 3

We are on our way, on our way to Festival, Festival, the Milky Way Festival. I hear the sounds of voices. Quietly, quietly, whispering, lingering gently on the night. I catch some words but am lulled back to sleep. The voices ebb and flow like the ocean tides. Sleepy, oh so sleepy. Gradually, the wave of voices gets louder and louder. Sleep is over, time to wake up, Festival begins.
In a fog, the music wakes me up, but the words are garbled, oh so garbled. Scientific Speak spoken to the sleepy, sleepy supplicant. What's happening? The music is louder and louder, I can't think, no time to think, just feel the music. Words, what are they saying? Where are we going? Hold on, stand down, jump up, feel the beat. Where are we going? The fog rolls in and the sounds become tendrils of lost time. I can't see, I follow the music....quietly, quietly. Where are we going?
We are lost because we cannot see. We feel, we feel the deep unease of entering the unknown. We feel the power of those who wish to change the world. We are not humanity, we are our genes. We are not culture, we are our genes. I prefer jeans but these people prefer genes worn under the microscope. So where is Festival? Where is the Milky Way Festival? Well, we have the UC Davis festival (I wrote about that the other day). Now we have DTU (Technical University of Denmark) in collaboration with Danisco, Arla Foods, the University of Southern Denmark, University of Copenhagen (KU LLife) and University of Reading collaborating on a project to utilize human milk oligosaccharides to creat a better infant formula. Let me quote from the article, "Research in oligosaccharides from human milk is key to understanding the development of the immune system in newborn infants." Jorn Dalgaard Mikkelsen states, "We plan to develop a way to produce these oligosaccharides using an enzymatic process that will convert certain kinds of food materials into the desired products." You will be glad to know that they are developing a "green" process for this new ingredient in infant formula. Green process? Love it, go green, go infant formula...rah, rah, rah!!!!!!!
http://www.newstatesman.com/business-food-and-drink/2010

Not to be outdone in this rush to use human milk oligosaccharides, is the Bode Lab at UC-San Diego. The mission that they have accepted (Mission Impossible made Possible by funding), "is to provide formula-fed infants with the same benefits that breast-fed infants receive with their mother's milk." The NIH is funding Lars Bode to the tune of $927,000. Dr. Lars Bode interned at Numico, and also has funding from Wyeth ($150,000) and Dannon.
http://www.bode-lab.com

Key to the Milky Way Festival is the theme that "men of science want to make a better infant formula that more closely resembles human milk." That's a good thing, right? Who could ever be opposed to making infant formula safe? "Not me, not me, not me," said the little blind mouse to his brother or was it his sister? Rumor has it that mice really love science, they gather at truck stops hoping to be picked up by some Genome Truck. Life is good in a cage. You get picked up and petted by the labcoats.
Mothers, part of the deal of the Milky Way Festival is to donate your milk; so that the infant formula industry can improve their product and sell it back to you. Oh no, wait, they won't be selling it back to you because you are breastfeeding, right? They will sell it to your sister down the street, in the projects so that her baby will be safe. "We have a product that is genetically designed from breastmilk that will save that poor woman's baby. Your baby, too, if ya get tired of all the bother of breastfeeding," so says the men of designer baby milks. And the mists roll in and the darkness descends upon the festivities. Tomorrow, a new design, genetically engineered and specific for your baby. Are you on the DNA registry? Oh no, I haven't done that yet. The blind mouse laughes as he treads his wheel, "I gave at the office."
Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

Milky Way Festival part 2

On my way to the Festival, I noticed the International Breast Milk Project (IBMP). They send donor milk to South Africa, and various countries. They recently did the PR for HMBANA (Human Milk Banking Association of North America). regarding donor milk to Haiti. There seems to be alot of public relation people on staff. They are partnered with Prolacta. But mentioned that with HMBANA that Prolacta was not involved. I wonder if HMBANA and the IBMP are going for a longer partnership?? On the IBMP website, I was fascinated with their association with DLA Piper (lawyers). They state, "We support IBMP's core mission of providing breast milk to needy infants in the developing world. DLA Piper's corporate, regulatory and intellectual property lawyers are helping IBMP negotiate the global landscape from a compliance and risk management perspective."
http://www.breastmilkproject.org/op_dla_piper.php

Why does IBMP need intellectual property lawyers to "negotiate the global landscape?" Intellectual property lawyers are expensive lawyers...want me to tell you their hourly rates?? I could almost pay my monthly mortgage payment with what they get an hour. But I guess ya need those guys when you are working globally and with all those human milk component patents. What woman is going to complain about how someone used her milk to create a money-making patent that will be used to make infant formula, or a drug, or a food??? Yeah, don't ask, can't tell ya, just sign the form.....part of the fun of Festival......I guess the fun will begin when various industries fight over who owns a particular human milk component. Mine, no mine, gimme, gimme...I found it first, mom loves me best. And the IP lawyers gleefully rub their hands together as the clock ticks away.....
Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain

Milky Way Festival

"Lady Madonna, baby at your breast

Wonder how you manage to feed the rest...

Just hum along cause I forgot the rest of the words, something about "see how they run." Or is that another Beatle song? Been invited to the Festival? Go, go it will be so much fun, we will be dancing with the stars! The Milky Way Stars

What do you believe? Believe in a world of good and evil? The good guys are us. The bad guys are them.... Of course, I have to say lately that I haven't a clue of who the good and bad guys are because it is all mixed up in my head and garbled like the Beatles song, Lady Madonna. I always thought the Beatles song was about a prostitute trying to keep her children fed. Then I thought maybe it was about the Virgin Mary and was symbolic of the sacraments.

When I was researching patents on human milk, I found a government website devoted to the biology of the mammary gland. The scientific view is that the mammary gland is a manufacturing plant for various proteins that could be used in treating diseases. Yet half of planet USA, believes the mammary gland is a sexual organ whose function is pleasuring men. Ya have to love those scientists, leave it to them to put boobs under a microscope. Manufacturing plant??? Sexual Organ??? Only two choices??? How about a feeding station for the preservation of the species?? Three choices, what's a poor woman ta do??? The symbol on this government website devoted to the mammary gland was the female-wolf feeding Romulus and Remus. I had that moment, that moment of yes, I get it, I get it. This must be about the Roman Empire. The war-driven empire that conquered the world. How do you create a tough, no-nonsense society? Take your sons away from their mothers, and feed them animal milks. Actually, I believe the government mammary gland biology site is about playing with genes--genetic engineering. But interesting that they would have as a symbol, the she-wolf feeding the twins Romulus and Remus. They took alot of this down--the Beatles song, etc. But on one page of their website, you can still see the wolf and those Roman twins.

I got sidetracked on our way to the Milky Way Festival. There is an interest in the human mammary gland, not to preserve and protect breastfeeding. But to create functional foods, nutraceuticals. The interest is not just from the dairy, infant formula, food, and supplement industries but investments are being made through funding by the US government and various educational institutions. For example, lets look at "functional glycobiology." What is glycobiology? It is the study carbohydrates. There has been an enormous interest in the oligosaccharides of human milk and the role they play in prevention of disease. IBCLCs might be interested in looking at the Functional Glycobiology Program at UC Davis. "Since its inception in 2005, the group has assembled a dossier of publications, analytical, physiological, clinical, and molecular methods and protocols, patents on structure-function relationships of a number of oligosaccharide compounds, microbial genetic sequences, and structural databases related to bioactive components found in human milk, which are currently being translated to commercially viable sources of oligosaccharides from bovine milk and other sources."

http://fgp.ucdavis.edu/translation.html

Who is collaborating with UC Davis on this project/program? Prolacta, Nestle, DSM--makes AA oils for infant formula, California Dairy Research Foundation, Dairy Management, Inc. They are also collaborating with government agencies: NIH, JGI, USDA. They have a couple of patents available for licensing. So let me see how this works, women donate their milk to Prolacta who collaborates with UC Davis on this project (who is collaborating with Nestle of all companies). And they will be creating functional foods from the knowledge of human milk, in particular prebiotic compounds. Funny how we will tell mothers to go out and buy prebiotic and probiotic supplements for the breastfed babies, when all along they are getting doses of prebiotic and probiotic compounds in their own mother's milk. It's a good secret. Of course the prebiotic and probiotic the mother buys is in all liklihood genetically engineered.

Lets look at something else that is interesting. Prolacta has some scientific advisors. One of them is Lars Hansen. He happens to be a co-inventor of a US patent called, "Peptides based on the sequence of human lactoferrin and their use," patent # 7253143. (filed in 1999, human lactoferrin is a component of human milk). This patent states the use of the peptides (human lactoferrin) will be used for the treatment and prevention of urinary tract infections and colitis but also for conditions caused by HIV-1 and CMV. Pharmasurgics in Sweden owns this patent. Hansen has previously been funded by a European infant formula company.

So on our way to the Milky Way Festival, we see a world of mixed interests. Nothing is as it seems, and no one is singing about it. Although, quietly in the background, I hear the Beatles singing Lady Madonna and I swear there is a wolf following me.....

Copyright 2010 Valerie W. McClain