Not inactive.... just busy!

I'm sorry my friends..... this poor blog is being thoroughly neglected right now!!!  I will be back to posting, hopefully very very soon, but for the moment life is seriously busy and I just haven't had the time to keep up on everything..... including Informed Parenting.

I will return though!!!  Soon!  I promise!!!!!

INFACT-Urgent Action!!

My Friends, Nestle is at it again, and this time it's truly disgusting!!!!  Haul out your computers and fire up your emails!!!

Urgent Action

No honour for Nestlé!

INFACT Canada is deeply concerned that the University of Alberta is planning to award Mr. Peter Brabeck-Latmathlé, the Chair and former Chief Executive Officer of Nestlé, an honorary degree for contributing to “the preservation, distribution and management of one of humanity’s most vital resources: water.”

Protests are coming on from all over the world. Nestlé, which has been designated as the “Least Ethical Company” globally, is infamous for practices including destruction of water resources; aggressive marketing of infant formula and other baby foods in violation of the World Health Organization’s International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and subsequent WHA resolutions; trade union busting and infiltrating public interest organizations critical of Nestlé’s predatory practices.

INFACT Canada joins the Council of Canadians in condemning University of Alberta’s plans to award Mr. Peter Brabeck-Latmathlé an honorary degree. Instead, the University should criticize Nestlé’s destructive business practices and inform the company that there is no honour for the CEO!

Swiss journalist Robert James Parsons has been writting about Nestlé since 1997. Read his brilliant letterto the University of Alberta heads.

Read Robert James Parsons’ letter: 
http://www.infactcanada.ca/whatsnew/rjparsons-letter-u-of-a.doc

Send your message today to:

• University of Alberta President, Indira Samarasekera: uofapres@ualberta.ca
• University of Alberta Chancellor, Linda Hughes: senate.office@ualberta.ca

Copy to:

• INFACT Canada: esterken@infactcanada.ca
• Baby Milk Action: prundall@babymilkaction.org and mikebrady@babymilkaction.org

Council of Canadians’ online form

You can also use the Council of Canadians’ online form to send a message to the University of Alberta President and Chancellor.

Use the Council of Canadians’ online form: 
http://canadians.org/action/2012/nestle.html

Elisabeth Sterken
Director INFACT Canada/IBFAN North America
esterken@infactcanada.ca

Abbott Formula webcast a ploy to target Canadian Health Care Providers

Abbott Nutrition Webcast to Target Canadian Health Care Providers

Health care providers across Canada will be the target of an Abbott Nutrition webcast on Wednesday. The January 18th webcast, presented by doctors and scientists, will promote Abbott’s infant formula, focusing on two of its marketing gimmicks, prebiotics and lutein. See the press release below.

View Abbott’s Webcast Information [PDF]:
http://infactsecure.com/broadcast-email/Abbott-Webcast.pdf

Let the organizers and presenters of the webcast know what you think about this flagrant violation of the WHO Code! Write an email letter or adapt INFACT’s sample letter.

Download INFACT Canada’s sample letter:
http://infactsecure.com/broadcast-email/Abbott-Webcast-Press-Release.doc

Send your emails to:

• Webcast Moderator, Dr. David Mack: dmack@cheo.on.ca
• Speaker, Dr. Philip M Sherman, with The Hospital for Sick Children: philip.sherman@sickkids.ca
• Speaker, Glenn R. Gibson, PhD: g.r.gibson@reading.ac.uk
• Abbott Representative, Michael Seibel: michael.seibel@abbott.com

From INFACT Canada/IBFAN North America
http://infactsecure.com/broadcast-email/abbott-webcast.html

Press Release

Canadian and International Voices Call on Abbott Formula Company to Immediately Cancel Marketing Webcasts to Health Professionals Across Canada

January 16, 2012

Members of the International Lactation Consultants Association, the International Baby Food Action Network, together with their Canadian counterparts are demanding that Abbott Nutrition cancel the infant formula marketing immediately.

Abbott is one of the world’s largest manufacturers and promoters of infant formula. Infants in Canada and around the world suffer illness, malnutrition and even death because of Abbott’s aggressive marketing, which is designed to persuade mothers to formula feed instead of breastfeed. Globally UN agencies note that at least 1.5 million babies die every year linked to artificial feeding practices. As the one of the world’s most aggressive formula marketers, Abbott bears much responsibility for this outrageous death toll.

The World Health Organization International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and relevant resolutions of the World Health Assembly have been adopted globally to curb the marketing excesses of the infant formula companies and safeguard infant health. The International Code has been fully endorsed by all UN Member States, including Canada. These provisions unequivocally state that health care systems and professionals should not be complicit in the marketing and promotion of artificial feeding products. Conflicts of interest, such as the webcast formula promotion to health care professionals by Abbott are explicitly prohibited.

By making health claims about their products, Abbott is misrepresenting their products and deceiving parents into thinking that the products are similar to breastmilk. Nothing can be further from the truth. The reality is not “prebiotics and lutein”, but dirty contaminated bottles, stinking diarrhea, babies screaming with pain from otitis media, babies separated from their mothers in pediatric wards with acute respiratory disease, damaged guts that morph into chronic lifelong conditions such as Crohn’s disease, more women dying of breast cancer, the cost and pain of living a life with diabetes and lives cut short because of cardiac disease and so on. The addition of more chemicals to infant formula in order to create marketing advantages can only contribute to more health damage from this chemical cocktail.

What Abbott does not tell parents is that its powdered formula may also be contaminated with the lethal microorganism Enterobacter sakazakii, which can result in sepsis, necrotizing enterocolitis, meningitis and even death. The WHO recommends that powdered formula be reconstituted at 70 degrees centigrade to killE. sakazakii.

But these are not the only misleading claims Abbott makes to market its formula in Canada. Abbott claims its formula fats to be “closest to breast milk - to support your baby’s normal brain, and eye development”. These claims are unsubstantiated and designed to deceive parents into thinking the product is like breastmilk. Canada’s Food and Drugs Act prohibits such claims.

Full compliance of the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and the subsequent World Health Assembly resolutions relating to infant and young child nutrition is the minimum standard for the marketing of infant formulas. Abbott must immediately cease these damaging promotions and withdraw from this deceptive and damaging webcast designed to use Canada’s health care professionals as marketing agents for formula feeding.

Contact
Elisabeth Sterken, nutritionist, BSc, MSc. Dt
Director INFACT Canada/IBFAN North America
esterken@infactcanada.ca
Tel: 416-595-9819

Read the press release online at:
http://infactsecure.com/broadcast-email/abbott-webcast.html

Stop the Discrimination by Revenue Canada- CCTB

While many Canadians know that dealing with Revenue Canada can be a pain in the butt, and that dealing with the Canadian Child Tax Benefit people can be especially frustrating, they may not realize the just how far this agency will go to make life a living hell.


Twice in the past 4 years I've gone head to head with the CCTB offices. Once for a claim they'd made against me for no reason,  and once when they spent 7 months giving me the run around and making me jump through hoops when our second youngest son was born.  After 7 months of complete and utter frustration, I finally called up the offices of the Minister of Finance in Ottawa.  I lucked out and somehow got a hold of the Aide to the Minister himself and was able to tell him the entire sordid tale.... miraculously, 24 hours later I got a call from the manager from the local  Revenue Canada office and 5 days after that I had a cheque for the entire 7 months of back payments of missing CCTB cheques.


The noisy hinge gets the oil.


Last week a friend of mine sent me a link to a group on Facebook called "Stop The Discriminatory CTB Review" that grabbed my interest, so I clicked over to see what the group was about.  While I was absolutely no stranger to the never ending frustration of dealing with Revenue Canada, what I discovered really rattled me.  This is what Amber, owner of the Facebook page, wrote:

How The Canadian Child Tax Benefit Review Is DiscriminatoryThe CRA is conducting and has been conducting reviews of random families recieveing CTB. This review asks that you show various forms of proof that your child(ren) lived with you for specific tax years. They allow a month to provide the letters necessary, failing to provide exactly what they ask for results in you owing back the CTB for that tax year or not recieveing retro-payment. The specific requirements are: A letter from an authorized daycare, A letter from your child's school as well as a letter from your family Dr. or Dentist naming the dates your child was seen and the address at which they lived spanning the ENTIRE (the review itself put that in bold) year under review. Families who cannot provide the following required letters are as follows:...-Parents who choose to stay at home with thier children and not send them to daycare.-Parents who choose an unauthorized daycare provider (family member or friend)-Parents who home educate-Parents who choose not to or due to allergies are unable follow the regular vaccine schedule-Families who do not have a family doctors and only bring their child(ren) to the dentist every 6 months as recommended by the Canadian Dental Association. -Families who choose a Naturopathic doctor as their primary healthcare provider-Families who do not have dental insurance and recieve dental care through a free dental clinic I am currently working on a letter to Tony Clement describing (using statistics Canada) how the strict criteria for proving that your children lived with you for a specific tax year, is not only discriminatory, but also guarantees a large amount of savings in CTB pay out for our federal government. If you know of any families currently under going this "review" or simply believe that this is a discrimnatory review please send them to this group and join it yourselves.

Amber has written an excellent letter to Minister Tony Clement, asking that he, and our government, address this blatant discrimination against families in Canada.  I would like to encourage everyone to send a copy of this letter, or write your own, to the Hon. Tony Clement, and to all your local MPs and MPPs.  Our Canadian Government needs to hear the voices of those that are being discriminated against and the voices of Canadians in support of these necessary changes.

The CRA Ombudman's office has stated that their office will not handle these concerns however the Canadian Human Rights Commission  can, and The Minister of Finance- jim.flaherty@parl.gc.ca This situation should/could be considered a "systemic" complaint, this link will take you directly to the comments form. It can be filled out with your own words, or use the letter below.

http://www.oto-boc.gc.ca/systmc_nqrs/cmmnts-eng.html

To The Honourable Tony Clement:
I have recently read the request for information for the Canada Revenue Agency’s Canadian Child Tax Benefit Review, and I am deeply concerned about the strict and discriminatory criteria for proving that one’s child lived with them during the year under review. I am also disturbed that the review appears to be an accusation of tax fraud, with monetary consequences and not criminal, as such, the burden of proof rests on the accused. For clarity, all quotes from the CCTB review documents will be in bold.
The strict and in some situations, impossible to provide, requirements are as follows:
In the proof of residency:
“If you are the owner of your residence, provide your property tax bill(s) for each year under review. Your property tax bill must include your full name, the address of the property and the year” What if the house is only in the spouses’ name and therefore the property tax bill does not include the name of the member of the family that receives CCTB?
“In addition to either A) or B) please provide one of the following documents”
“C) Mortgage papers” Mortgage may not be in the name of CCTB recipient
“D ) Insurance policies” CCTB receiver may not have insurance of any kind in their name.
“E) Household bills…Please provide TWO of these documents per year for each year under review.” People renting in all-inclusive situations and only using cell phones could not provide this information. Also the parent receiving CCTB, may not have utility bills in their name.
The discriminatory requirements are as follows:
"Please provide documentation from TWO of the following sources for each child to support the ENTIRE period under review” (please note: all uppercase print exists on original document)
“A) A copy of the child’s registration/enrollment document or information/emergency contact sheet. It must be signed and certified by the school to be a true copy.” According to the Ontario Federation of Teaching Parents, the number for Canada as a whole is estimated at approximately 60,000 homeschooled children.
“B) A letter from the daycare or school authorities which includes the following information from their files…” According to Statistics Canada, General Social Survey: Navigating Family Transitions, published Wednesday June 13th 2007: “23% of parents who took leave did not reintegrate into the labour market…24% who did not return to work said it was for financial reasons, that childcare services were too expensive to be worth the cost” Also, Statistics Canada article, Women in Canada: Paid Work. Published December 9th, 2010, stated : “The employment rate for women with children under the age of 3 was 64.4%” That leaves a percentage of 36.6% who did not need a regular daycare provider. I think we can agree that this is a significant amount of families that cannot possibly provide the required documents.
“C) Report card(s) for each year under review, only if they include the child’s home address, attendance record and guardian’s name.” see OFTP estimate of homeschooled children above.
“D) A letter from your family doctor or dentist confirming the child is under the doctor’s or dentist’s care and indicating the home address on their file for the child. The letter must contain the dates that the child was seen by them and must cover the entire period under review. The letter must be on letterhead and must be signed by the doctor or dentist…” “More than 1 quarter of those aged 20-34 were without a regular medical doctor…in comparison 1in 5 Canadians aged 35-44 (18%) …were without a regular family doctor…” – Statistics Canada, Canadian Community Health Survey (correction) published June 21st, 2011. These are the age groups who are currently raising families. I do not believe it is an unfair assumption that many of the children of these adults who do not have family physicians also are without a family physician themselves. Which leaves a letter from a dentist as proof of the child living with the CCTB recipient: “The letter must contain the dates that the child was seen by them and must cover the entire period under review” The Canadian Dental Association recommends: “…a dental exam every six months will let your child’s dentist catch small problems early.” Unless, the child(ren) is suffering from serious dental problems there is no way, with a letter from the dentist, that a family could provide the documents that cover the entire period under review, as requested by the Canada Revenue Agency.
Finally according to the CRA’s CTTB review: “If you do not reply or do not provide the requested information and supporting documentation, we will stop or revise your payments. You may also be required to repay amounts already received” Families who cannot provide the requested documentation and therefore may have their CCTB payments stopped, revised be forced to repay amounts received are as follows:
-Families with a stay at home parent, who choose not to send their children to a daycare center.
-Families who home educate.
-Families without a family doctor
-Families in which the CCTB recipient is unemployed or chooses not to be responsible for utilities and therefore has no bills in his/her name.
-Families who live in “utilities included” housing.
There is a large amount of families in this constituency and all over Canada, that fall under the descriptions above, please do not let this discriminatory review deprive them of much needed CCTB.
Thanking you in advance for your swift action to protect this financial income for the families in your constituency,

To send an email to Tony Clement- 

tony.clement@parl.gc.ca To find your local MP:

http://www.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/MainMPsCompleteList.aspx?TimePeriod=Current&Language=E

As I have said over and over, the only way we can make change happen is to stand up and speak out.  Please, take 15 minutes out of your busy schedule and let your voice be heard!!!

IBFAN: The Business of Malnutrition

The Business of malnutrition: breaking down trade rules to profit from the poor

Guidelines for a new range of products for babies ‘at risk’ of malnutrition was the topic at the annual meeting of Codex, the UN body that sets food standards. In the press release below, learn about how the mass marketing of these products may create the scary new ‘business of malnutrition’ where the developed world makes big profits from the malnutrition and poverty of the developing world.

From IBFAN
http://www.infactcanada.ca/whatsnew/codex-2011.html

Press Release

The Business of malnutrition: 
breaking down trade rules to profit from the poor

Codex Nutrition Committee: Bad Soden, Frankfurt, Germany

12-18th November 2011

Health campaigners, led by the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) and representatives from a dozen developing countries attended the Nutrition Meeting of Codex, the UN body that sets international food standards These attendees achieved partial success in the Codex Guidelines by calling for strict controls on the marketing of a loose range of processed fortified products for babies that were never clearly defined. The objective was to provide nutrients which are “either lacking or are present in insufficient quantities,” with the clear aim of targeting all those ‘at risk’ of malnutrition.

The countries, Brazil, Nigeria, Chile, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Gambia, Togo, Cameroon, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, South Africa and Bolivia, fearing that uncontrolled marketing would undermine breastfeeding, increase family poverty and create dependence on products that are expensive and often unnecessary, called for several key World Health Assembly Resolutions to be mentioned in the guidelines. The United States and the European Union initially opposed this move saying that because the Resolutions stand on their own there was no need to refer to them. Australia and Botswana suggested that paragraphs from the relevant WHA texts could be referenced and, after the World Health Organisation (WHO) explained the importance of the Resolutions, the EU and the US agreed to a compromise.

Experts from the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN), led by Elisabeth Sterken of INFACT Canada, suggest that as the EU and US economic crisis continues, the new ‘business of malnutrition’ – which has the potential for multi-billion dollar profits from exports to the developing world and is portrayed as a win-win solution for the economy and development – could lead to a marketing bonanza that, instead of improving infant and young child health, could harm it and drain family budgets.

. . . .

Read the full press release online at:
http://www.infactcanada.ca/whatsnew/codex-2011.html

Read the full press release in PDF format at:
http://www.infactcanada.ca/pdf/codex-2011.pdf

Read the related article in the Guardian, “Alarm as corporate giants target developing countries”:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/nov/23/corporate-giants-target-developing-countries?INTCMP=SRCH

Elisabeth Sterken
Director INFACT Canada/IBFAN North America
esterken@infactcanada.ca

Sending our toddlers off to school to learn to be good little automatons

Two days ago an article was published that literally left me speechless, and gave me a serious case of Head/Desk.

*Thud*..... thud thud thud..... *repeat


The article entitled "Childhood education starting at age 2 would pay off big, new Canadian report concludes" on Yahoo.com states:

Forget about daycare, a new Canadian report recommends every child should start going to school starting at age two.The Early Years Study 3 , released Tuesday, recommends toddlers have access to publicly funded early-childhood education at their local school. The report says an "avalanche of evidence" indicates there's a big payoff for kids if they start learning earlier.
"Education is well-established and a well-valued system within our country, and it's a place we feel it should be attached to, to build on," Margaret Norrie McCain, who co-authored the report with the late Dr. Fraser Mustard and Kerry McCuaig," said in the Toronto Star ......recommendations should be easy to implement in Ontario, which already has a full-day kindergarten for children aged four and five.
"I would come down to three-year-olds, then two-year-olds and one-year-olds," Mustard said. "I'd move right down, and I'd pay (early childhood educators) well, and if you are telling me we don't have the money, I'd make the point that the risk for physical and mental health problems is actually set in early development."

The Early Years "Study" it's self says

"the three Early Years studies argue that if we truly wish to provide our children with an equal opportunity to maximize their potential, it is vital that we do everything we can to enhance their early development. Our survival as a species will depend on our children acquiring the skills they will need to cope with the social and environmental revolutions of the 21st century. Canada’s tomorrow depends on our ability to leverage what we know into policies and practices that support families and benefit children today." 

As I said above, these articles literally left me with a raging headache and an inability to form the cloud of outrage in my head into simple words.  But don't worry, because Jonathan McLeod seems to of taken all the anger and spluttering exasperation in my head and put it all together in a great package of words that echo my thoughts almost exactly.  


*course language warning for those that are sensitive to those things

They’re Dirty Filthy LiarsJonathan McLeodNews agencies have been picking up on a new report on child, err toddler, education. The Early Years Study 3 has made some waves as the researchers propagandists behind it make the claim that children as young as 18 months need to be dumped into schools where they can start learning.The report is garbage.This isn’t some new study that has been released, it’s not even some meta-study, analyzing the results of various other studies. It’s a political manifesto dressed up academic garb. From the very beginning, the authors state an obvious, but insidious, agenda: their “progressive goal” to make society better. ‘Progressive’ is a funny term. It seems so beneficial, and can so easily be dropped in as a synonym for ‘liberal’, but that’s not what’s going on here. The authors have a political cause to push, and they will stop at nothing – nothing – to get disabuse you of any differing views of the functioning of society.The authors are quite clear in their intent and their concern. They aren’t worried about children; they aren’t worried about families. Yes, they dress up all their politics in fuzzy stories about trips to the library and immigrants finding a place in our cold, dark society, but their concern is only for society, not individuals and not families. Personal desires and preferences should never be a primary concern; the will of the individual should be subverted for the benefit of the state.Don’t believe me? The report bemoans the lost economic activity of stay-at-home parents. The parents, we are told, are not being productive or contributing to society. They need to be freed, apparently, from the chains of parenting so that they may serve a greater function. The report worries that if the current trend away from stay-at-home parents were to reverse, it could spell the economic doom of Canada. I’m. Not. Kidding.These people were sly. They’re incredibly dishonest, but they’re not dumb. The report (and there’s too much crap in there for me to fisk the whole thing) begins with discussions about child development, and throws in a nice anecdote about a new Canadian who needed the government to help her care for all her kids. How could you be against child development or new Canadians integrating into society? Early on, though, the fix is in. First off, when the authors begin comparing their preferred model of round-the-clock child care, they tip their hand by comparing the costs to that of other schools in the district (Toronto), but they’re only comparing a public institution to other public institutions. No private schools are ever mentioned. This is a theme throughout the entire report; education is the sole domain of the government.

To read the rest of Jonathan's excellent diatribe please click HERE

If this is the way that our government thinks we should nurture our children and "support families".... it makes me very happy to be a stay at home - homeschooling mom!!!  

"Milksharing on Facebook: one year later"

With the whirlwind of starting homeschooling and getting ready for Halloween, I completely forgot about our first anniversary!  October 28th marked the first anniversary of the launch of a global milksharing network on Facebook!!  I can NOT believe that it's already been 12 months- it seems like just weeks ago we were setting up pages and organizing hundreds of volunteers and pulling together press releases..... WOW!

Jodine's World's article  "Milksharing on Facebook: One year later" sums it all up perfectly!!

It's been a whole year since Emma Kwasnica's Facebook milksharing network  was launched. I can't believe it's been that long - seems like 10 minutes ago I was blogging about the six-month anniversary with my post, "A funny thing happened on the way to the milk bank."
Early on there were some bumps for global milksharing - understandable as 300 volunteer admins struggled to set up and run local communities using Facebook. Just as individuals struggle with the love-hate relationship with Facebook, so did the admins managing over a hundred community pages in 50 countries around the globe.
 Then there were some personality clashes - the original Eats on Feets Arizona community page founder parted ways with the global network after asserting her rights to her name. The global group became Human Milk 4 Human Babies (HM4HB) and while moms just kept right on offering up surplus milk and babes continued to receive it, the name change has hampered the growth of this network. There are still some Eats on Feets pages around and families new to milksharing can't always find their active local communities. And these days the Eats on Feets website has been hijacked by someone peddling breast implants and pregnancy diets, creating the potential for confusion for individuals and even reporters looking to do a feature on the one-year anniversary of the movement.
But Human Milk 4 Human Babies hasn't lost any steam and in September it sponsored the first World Milksharing Week with broad worldwide participation from Australia to Arizona.
 And although France joined the US and Canada with official warnings about the dangers of informal or Internet-based milksharing, three well-known academics published a supportive commentary in the International Breastfeeding Journal. "Milk Sharing: from private practice to public pursuit"  has become the most accessed item on the IBJ website this year. Authors James Akre, Karleen Gribble and Maureen Minchin argue the risks of milksharing are manageable and conclude: 

 

"this made-by-mothers model shows considerable potential for expanding the world's supply of human milk and improving the health of children." Akre, Gribble, Minchin, IBJ 2011

HERE to read the entire article on Jodine's World

So much has happened in the past year.  Human Milk 4 Human Babies has grown bigger and faster and busier than we ever thought possible at this time last year.  Mothers are coming together all over the world to create "communities" to support each other and insure that babies are getting the breastmilk they need to grow and be strong and healthy.  This is the Vision and Mission of HM4HB: to promote the nourishment of babies and children around the world with human milk. We are dedicated to fostering community between local families who have chosen to share breastmilk.

Our Vision

HM4HB is a global milksharing network, a virtual village, comprising thousands of people from over fifty countries. We are mothers, fathers, adoptive families, grandparents, childbirth and breastfeeding professionals, volunteers, supporters, donors, and recipients that have come together to support the simple idea that all babies and children have the right to receive human milk. We use social media as a platform for local families to make real-life connections and come together as sustainable milksharing communities where women graciously share their breastmilk. HM4HB is built on the principle of informed choice: we trust, honour, and value the autonomy of families and we assert they are capable of weighing the benefits and risks of milksharing in order to make choices that are best for them. We hold the space for them and protect their right to do what is normal, healthy, and ecological.

Breastmilk, the biologically normal sustenance for humankind, is a free-flowing resource and mothers of the world are willing to share it. Milksharing is a vital tradition that has been taken from us, and it is crucial that we regain trust in ourselves, our neighbors, and in our fellow women. Feeding any breastmilk substitute is not without risk and we support the families who know there is another option. We are the bridge that connects local families and brings them together again as milksharing communities. Indeed, the future of humanity depends on our return to sharing in a local and tangible way with one another.

We want milksharing and wet-nursing to be commonplace and babies to be fed at women's breasts whenever and wherever they need it. We dream of a world where mothers from previous generations pass on the tradition of breastfeeding and are a wealth of knowledge and support. We can forsee a time when women protect each other and help one another feed their babies so that every mother feels whole and no mother feels broken or that her body is failing her. We imagine a world where family members, friends, lactation consultants, doctors, and midwives do not hesitate to recommend donor milk when it is needed. We envision a future where families come together to raise this generation, and the next, by nourishing human babies everywhere with human milk and unconditional love.

Every person of the world is invited to join HM4HB. Page administrators, members, donors, recipients, and supporters are all important for building local, real-life communities where acquiring donor milk is no different than asking a trusted neighbor for an egg. We hope that one day in the future all babies in the world will thrive and grow on mother's milk, and HM4HB will no longer be needed because wet-nurses and breastmilk are available on every street, village, town, city, and island around the globe.

 For more information about Human Milk 4 Human Babies, please visit the website at: http://hm4hb.net/index.html  Visit the global fan page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/hm4hb