For me, it was the first time I saw this picture that I made the decision to never buy a Nestle product again. When I saw this picture and read this woman's story, I cried for days. (yes, I was pregnant at the time, but hormones aside- can YOU look at this picture and not get teary?).
Infant formula KILLS babies in these third world countries. (Hell, Infant formula kills babies in North America too! And infant formula companies just keep mass marketing their product to these unsuspecting mothers regardless of the death toll. Sick.
One baby lived.
The other died.
(This is a TRUE photgraph and a true story. In some countries, women are told not to fully nurish girls, because the governments do not want them to live. Boys are a much more valuable asset, especially in countries where they control the population. This photo shows the difference between a baby boy being breastfed and a baby girl being forumla fed. Formula feeding babies in other countries without clean water sources, access to more forumla, or the proper serving sized proves, as in this photo, to be deadly. Boycott Nestlé!)"Use my picture if it will help" said this mother. The children are twins, the bottle-fed child is a girl who died the day after this photograph was taken by UNICEF in Islamabad, Pakistan. Her brother was breastfed and thrived. The mother was incorrectly told she could not breastfeed both children. This horrific picture demonstrates the risk of artificial infant feeding, particularly where water supplies are unsafe. The expense of formula can lead to parents over-diluting it to make it last longer or using unsuitable milk powders or animal milks. In all countries breastfeeding provides immunity against infections. Despite these risks the baby food industry aggressively markets breastmilk substitutes encouraging mothers and health workers to favour artifical infant feeding over breastfeeding. Such tactics break marketing standards adopted by the World Health Assembly. Nestlé, the world's largest food company, is found to be responsible for more violations than any other company and is the target of an international boycott.SCN News May 1991
This picture tells two stories: most obviously, about the often fatal consequences of bottle-feeding; more profoundly, about the age-old bias in favour of the male. The child with the bottle is a girl - she died the next day. Her twin brother was breasfed. This woman was told by her mother-in-law that she didn't have enough milk for both her children, and so she should breastfeed the boy. But almost certainly she could have fed both her children herself, because the process of suckling induces the production of milk. However, even if she found that she could not produce sufficient milk - unlikly as that would be - a much better alternative to bottle-feeding would have been to find a wet-nurse. Ironically, this role has sometimes been taken by the grandmother. In most cultures, before the advent of bottle-feeding, wet-nursing was common practice....
HERE to read the entire article
