INFACT- WHO Code: Action Alert

Time to rally together again to stop another Infant Formula manufacturer from blatantly breaking the World Health Organizations International Code of Marketing Breastmilk Substitutes.  This time it's Mead Johnson who is trying to pretend that they are educating about infant health, when in fact it is just a marketing and sales ploy for their company.

Please take the time to write a letter or email to the powers that be at the Royal Victoria Hospital- tell them that we are watching them and that this can not and WILL NOT be allowed!! Take the time to do this because every single voice counts.  We have rallied together many times in the past and stopped this sort of sneaky marketing by Infant Formula companies before- the voices of the masses start with just one voice- YOURS.  It all starts with one, and every single voice makes a difference.

Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie:

Seminar Would Promote Infant Formula to Paediatrics Department Staff

In marketing, recruiting new customers is important. If you’re in the business of marketing infant formula one of the best ways to recruit new customers is a hospital paediatrics department: where new mothers come looking for guidance. And how could you influence the doctors and nurses, make them think that your product is scientifically advanced, that it’s getting closer to breastmilk, and that it’s OK. How about a one-hour infant formula infomercial masquerading as a scholarly seminar?

Well, that’s what infant formula maker Mead Johnson was thinking when they arranged for Dr. Marianna Mitchell to speak at the Barrie Royal Victoria Hospital paediatrics department.

Have a look at an excerpt from the seminar flyer:

Please join us as we welcome our speaker:

Dr. Marianna Mitchell, FAAP, FRCP(C), Lakeridge Health Corp., Oshawa site, Department of Paediatrics

The topic:

“Leading the Way: Bringing Infant Nutrition Closer to Breast Milk Function and Composition”

Objectives:

1. Explore the role of prebiotics in supporting GI health in infants
2. Examine advances in infant nutrition to more closely approximate the nutritional and functional properties of breast milk
3. Review the importance of DHA and ARA in cognitive and visual development and in immune health

View the entire flyer: Mead-Johnson-Royal-Victoria-Hospital.pdf

The words ‘infant formula,’ purposely do not appear, but in fact the seminar is all about infant formula. Prebiotics, ‘approximating breastmilk,’ DHA and ARA, with bogus unsubstantiated claims, are all infant formula marketing strategies. Throughout the flyer ‘infant nutrition,’ is simply a euphemism for ‘infant formula.’

This seminar is clearly a violation of section 6.2 of the World Health Organization International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and Resolution 63.23(4).

So, if Mead Johnson can make the doctors and nurses who work with new mothers think their formula is OK, or at least a viable alternative to breastfeeding, that thinking will affect the mother’s decision to breastfeed and her breastfeeding duration.

Help cancel this very blatant violation of the WHO Code and WHA Resolutons. Send a letter to Janice Skot, Executive Director, President and CEO of the Royal Victoria Hospital and ask her to cancel the Mead Johnson promotion of formula to pediatric staff. Let her know that you expect the Royal Victoria Hospital to abide by the World Health Organizations recommendations banning formula promotions in health care facilities and that she has a pubic mandate to protect the highest attainable standard of health for mothers and children in the facility she manages.

Ms. Janice Skot Executive Director, President and CEO North Simcoe Muskoka Royal Victoria Hospital

Mailing Address: Royal Victoria Hospital 201 Georgian Drive Barrie, ON L4M 6M2

Email: skotj@rvh.on.ca

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

Calling all Artists!!!

Dr. Momma of Peaceful Parenting is honoured to host the world wide call from all artists and homebirthers for submissions for an official International Homebirth Symbol.  We have seen the birth of the international Lactivist and Intactivist symbols and now it's time to bring another simple and empowering symbol into the limelight, to raise awareness and acceptance of homebirth.

Dr. Momma writes on Peaceful Parenting about the process of finding this great new visual icon:

International Homebirth Symbol: Call for Submissions

Timeline: 

Submissions will be accepted through December 1, 2010, and voting will take place during the month of December. The official symbol will be announced on Jan 1, 2011.

Process: 

Voting will be conducted in a two part process including both public voting by poll and a panel of voters made up of homebirth mothers, midwives, physicians, educators, and advocates. Voting panel members may not enter symbols into the running. Submission creators will remain anonymous during the panel and public voting to promote a fair process... 

...Submissions may be in any art form or style of graphic. However, keep in mind that this is for an international homebirth symbol that can be easily recognized as 'homebirth friendly' and one which can be printed and used with various advocacy mediums - signs, magnets, tshirts, onesies, blankets, washcloths, cloth diapers, jewelry, etc.

 So pull out your pens pencils ink and paints and start creating!!  We are all sooooooo looking forward to seeing all the incredible and inspired creations that I know will be brought to birth for this project!!

For more information about the search for the international symbol for homebirthing, and an introduction to the panel members that will be carefully considering each entry (of which I have the high honour of being one!), please  click HERE to read the entire article

Email questions or submissions to:

InternationalHomebirth@gmail.com

Be certain to include:
Full Name
Mailing Address
Email where you can be contacted

Being the change you wish to see in the world

I talk here on Informed Parenting about change and about women (and men) standing up and fighting for their Rights- their Rights to Birth their children in peace and without violence or emotional trauma. Their Right to birth at home. Their Rights to Nurse their babies, in public and at home, without guilt and without worry, and to be supported in their journey of nursing their children for as long as they wish.  Their Rights to take their WHOLE baby home, intact and unmolested.  Their RIGHTS. For without taking a stand our Rights will be trodden on and trampled by the galloping hoards of faceless bureaucrats and the cold medical machine that suffers a god complex. If we don't speak out, who will? If we don't speak out, who will encourage others to raise their voices with us? It all starts with one voice.

There are people that stand out as activists of the first order.  People who were not afraid to stand up and be heard, who saw injustice and inequality and said "This is WRONG!" And they stood tall and proud regardless of the ridicule and persecution. Dr. Martin Luther King comes to mind when we think of this kind of activist. Dr. King was arrested 30 times for taking a stand and speaking out against racism in the 50's and 60's, yet now he is revered as hero and the changes he stood up for are accepted as the norm in society. It didn't happen over night and it wasn't easy but nothing worth fighting for ever is. 

Within the circles of Childbirth and Childrens Rights activists there are a few names that stand out. Gloria Lemay is one of our greatest activists and heros, who has suffered over and over, including going to prison for what she believed in, but has never given up or bowed to the pressure that was put upon her.  In "Jan's Corner" of Midwifery Today Magazine Jan Tritten writes about "Midwifery under Fire".  Jan writes:

"We’ve had a period of relative calm in the North American midwifery community since 2002. In an issue of Midwifery Today E-News from July 2001 (http://www.midwiferytoday.com/enews/enews0329.asp), Sandra Stine, CNM, wrote about the history of midwives under fire:
“I am thinking about Yvonne Cryns, Nan Koehler, Abby Odam, the granny midwives and every other traditional birth attendant in this country who has been crucified by the AMA or another source,” Stine stated. “Wonderful, loving, competent midwives have been jailed, lost their homes, spent thousands of dollars defending themselves, or were placed under house arrest while serving families competently. The AMA (American Medical Association) has a track record of prosecuting midwives in almost every state!”
In July of 2002, Gloria Lemay was imprisoned for contempt of court in Canada. A few months later, Mennonite midwife Freida Miller was arrested and imprisoned for contempt of court in Ohio. Thanks to easy Internet access in 2002, the stories of these imprisonments—and of the events that built up to them—were relayed around the globe. Both women were mature adults and both went to prison knowing they had widespread support in the international community. They went to prison with their heads held high and their supporters worked behind the scenes, fundraising and researching to free them. Money and well wishes flowed in from all over the world. North American midwives had entered a new era.
While in prison, Lemay learned that she would be given an award for being “the woman in Canada who had made the biggest contribution to midwifery care in the year 2002.” (Women’s Voice Award).

 ""We’ve had a period of relative calm in the North American midwifery community since 2002" Jan says.... yet it would seem that this period of relative calm is coming to an end, and not just in the field of Midwifery.  Recently there have been negative articles in the media about the safety of home births, negative articles in the media about Breastfeeding, and now articles about male circumcision that hint that the CDC and the American Paediatric Society might be about to do a flip flop and change their official recommendations that there is no medical reason to support Male Circumcision. (which is absolutely false BTW).

All around us we see the Medical Machine, Big Pharma and other professional associations, with their assumed godhead, trying to chip away if not yank right out from under us our Human Rights. But worse is that there are the innocent sheeple out there that are going to listen and are going to assume that this is how it must be.  They will tow the official party line and maybe not discover until much too late that their Rights have been burned at the stake on the altar of the big green buck. That they have lost something precious that can never be reclaimed because they blindly followed the recommendations of those who serve themselves while pretending to be working for the people. Some people might sneer that it's their own damn fault for not researching and educating themselves about their choices, but we cannot blame the sheeple for their blind devotion- children grow up only knowing what they've been taught by their elders and if their elders knew no better than how can they teach the younger generation to think for themselves?  The sheeple will never learn about their Rights and the real information and choices unless those of us who DO know better stand up and tell them.

It isn't easy being the lone voice.  It isn't easy being that person standing above the bellowing crowds on a soap box trying to make yourself heard.  But if you don't do it who will?  There are voices of reason out there that are fighting for YOUR Rights, and the Rights of your children, every day.  People like Gloria Lemay who even in prison kept educating women. People like Danelle Frisbie  of  "Peaceful Parenting" who Fights for the Rights of infant boys everywhere to keep all of their body parts and not suffer mutilation at the hands of those who deem it "OK".  People like Dr. Jack Newman and Edith Kernerman of the Newman Breastfeeding Clinic & Institute who continually challenge the government to provide more Breastfeeding support and better education for medical personnel.  THESE people are your champions and deserve to hear OUR voices!!!

One of the worlds greatest activists Mahatma Gandhi once said "You must be the change that you want to see in the world". 

If you think the world is wrong, that the need for change is great, then lend your voices to the few so that they may soon become the many. A whisper can become a roar if enough voices are heard at once and NOW is the time to raise your voice!

"When Birthing Becomes a "Fetish""

I read this article and wanted to cry and rage.  Cry, because it's so true.  Rage, because it's so true. When will women stand up and realize that this is all just another way that women are subjugated, manipulated and repressed?
In North America women like to think of ourselves as "Feminists" (although many of us hate that particular term due to the mass misuse of it), as women who fight for equality, who stand up for ourselves and our Rights. If someone decided that women had to stand on the bus and let all the menfolk have the seats, you can bet there'd be a mass uprising across our continent that would make WWII look like a dinner party.  Yet these same women who would stomp on anyone who tried to take away their Equal Rights cower and prostrate themselves before the almighty Medical machine that tells them to shut up and birth their babies like good little girls, drugged to the nines, feet up in the stirrups, push on command and then lay quietly while their babies are manhandled, slapped, poked, prodded, stuck with needles, blinded by bright lights and eye drops, weighed & measured, & washed, and finally delivered into their mothers care bundled up like a neat package delivered by the post man.
And then when women stand up for themselves and try to take back their births, try to normalize natural birth as it was intended to be, Idiots like this write letters to the editor of the NY Times saying:

"Under new medical guidelines “natural birth” fetishists can more easily choose vaginal birth after a Caesarean, which results in what your article describes as “quite low” rates of uterine rupture (.7 to .9 percent).
Low? How many severely injured women and brain-damaged babies with multimillion-dollar medical and education bills do those “low” rates yield? And for what benefit?
How many physician hours and medical malpractice insurance dollars are to be expended on the inevitable lawsuits brought by the angry parents who regret their choice?"

HERE to read the original comments 


But Guggie Daly's article  "When Birthing Becomes a Fetish" says it all:

"If mamas who want a VBAC are called natural birth fetishists, then men who exercise, change their diet and take medications after heart surgery must be artery fetishists. And people who do physical therapy after spinal surgery are spine fetishists. People commend and praise those who are recovering from non-birth surgery. Someone who wants his body to work normally is applauded and encouraged. But for women who want normal birth? Clearly, nothing but surgery is good for those pregnant women. Hack it open, pull it out and pay those surgeons! Your body is evil and useless! Or so society tells them.

Why is normal birth attacked in our society? The lustful sexualisation of a woman's body influences the way our culture handles this situation. Just as nursing a child draws criticism and restrictions, so does pushing a child through our birth canal. For in a lustful culture, women are merely objectified, non-person beings present for the satisfaction of males. Therefore, their duality cannot be tolerated. Female breasts are for sexual foreplay only and a female vagina is for sexual intercourse only. A woman who wants to wear provocative clothing is praised. A woman who wants to nurse her child in public is condemned. A woman who goes in for surgery to remove her child is making the "safe choice" while a woman who tries to birth vaginally is a "fetishist." Notice the projection?

Because of this inequality, each person within the family unit is turned in violence towards the other, with both the mother and father turned against the child. The child, once seen as a symbol of the couple's unity and love, is instead looked upon as a thief, one who steals the woman's body from the man and one who ruins the woman's body so that she cannot appease the man to his standard."

 HERE to read the original article



Yep, tears of sorrow and anger.

And the saddest part of this is that so many many women will actually buy into this.  They'll point their fingers at the VBAC'ing, Homebirthing, Midwife Using women and call us "Abnormal"  because WE are standing up for our Rights and the Rights of our babies. Because WE are taking back the births that were taken away from us by the medical machine and the Good Ol' Boys Club.

We Fight because we HAVE to. We speak out because we HAVE to.

The wonderful Gloria Lemay posted this on her blog and I think it is extremely relevant to this conversation:

When Good Women Remain Silent

“First they came for the breech birthers, and I did not speak out–because I was not a breech birther;
Then they came for the twins, and I did not speak out–because I was not carrying twins;
Then they came for the high risk women, and I did not speak out-because I was not a high risk woman;
Then they came for the VBACs, and I did not speak out– because I was not a VBAC;
Then they came for me– and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Taken from a talk by Laureen Hudson of California at the Trust Birth Conference (March 2010). 

Little mommies: when you know they've been listening!

You know they've been listening to mommy.

I have to tell you all about my wonderful afternoon with my youngest daughter.

As a mother, I've always tried to be very open with my children and talk to them honestly and straightforward.  As an Activist, I've always spoken to my kids about what I'm doing, about why mommy sometimes spends a lot of time on the computer or on phone, and how mommy is trying to change things.  But when you're talking to kids, you always wonder how much they are listening, KWIM?

Today I realized that my kids really are listening in on all those conversations about birthing and breastfeeding, about loving our babies, and about human rights.

It's been a long week this week (yes, I know it's only tuesday, please don't remind me). Feeling rather burned out, I was sitting on the couch struggling to nurse my 4 month old son (which many times is kinda like trying to dress a squid), while deciding whether to do the dishes or fold laundry... if he ever fell asleep that is.

Out of the corner of my eye I notice my youngest daughter (Keira, 5) coming down the stairs.  She comes into the living room dressed in her usual quirky fashion (today's outfit consisted of grey woolly tights with black and silver snow flakes, jean shorts, and a hot pink tank top with a white sequinned bolero jacket over top), wearing her little sling that I made for her when she was just 18 months old with her baby in it.

She sits down on the couch next to me, crosses her legs- very lady like- and strikes up a conversation.

"Hello, my what a cute baby you have.  My baby is just 3 days old and he is very small and delicate.  He was born out of my vagina, because that's the way babies should be born, but I came out of my mommy's tummy because she didn't have a midwife then.  We're waiting for our midwives to come and visit us right now."  all the while she's rocking her baby in the sling.

So we chatted for a few minutes.  She told me about her baby and I told her about my baby- you know: Mommy talk.  After a minute or two she very gently takes her baby out of the sling and says
"Oh he's hungry.  Don't worry baby , mommy's got lots of milk for you" and she pulls up her shirt and  makes sure that her baby's mouth is exactly on her little nipple and holds him securely in a perfect cross cradle hold.  While we nursed out babies together (one of which was far less wiggly), we continued chatting.  She told me that babies needed to be breastfed and that bottle were not necessary. "Babies just need boobies and to be carried and hugged.  Skin to skin is the best way, but I can't get my shirt off right now."

After the babies finished nursing (one of which didn't belch up a mouthful of milk all over his mother), we sat and bounced our babies on our laps (one of our shirts was already covered with milk, so the bouncing wasn't likely to make it any worse.) and she told me about how her baby nurses and sleeps with her, and that she loved to carry him around in her sling.  "Oh I think he has to have a pee! would you mind holding him while I get his potty?"  (then proceeded to tell me that I wasn't supporting his head well enough...good thing she was rummaging up stairs in her toy box for the little potty and didn't see my baby goobering all over her baby's head!).

When she returned she held her baby over the potty with perfect practised poise and made the "pee" noise, praised her little one for have a big pee in his potty, and then got him dressed again and put him back in the sling.
(Around this time her younger brutish three year old brother came running and yelling into the room and at that point the "mommy mirage" disappeared and off they ran together to see if Sesame Street was on TV).

The entire time we sat together, just two mommy's bonding with our babies, I couldn't removed the huge grin that lit up my face. As she ran off to fry her brain in front of the TV all I could think was:

"It worked!! We've changed the next generation!!!"  I know that I'll have home birthed, breastfed, babyworn, attached grandchildren... sometime a long time from now!

So next time you find yourself wondering if your little ones are really listening, take heart: they hear and they are listening.  We will change the next generation- one child at a time.

...although don't get your hopes up about their fashion sense.  A lost cause is a lost cause!

 My little mommies- Quinlin 4 and Keira 18 months, wearing their baby slings I made for them!

When Activism becomes Detractivism

Why oh why can't we all just get along?  When it comes to fiery debates, there doesn't seem to be a topic more incendiary  than "Parenting"... well, maybe religion and politics, but still, you know what I mean right?  I have never understood the need for people to bash other groups that don't follow your beliefs to the letter.  We are all different people and we all make the best choices we can according to our own experiences, knowledge, and background.  Are those choices always right?  Are those choices always guilt-free? Are those choices always painless?  No, they aren't.  We are human, not omnipotent.  We can not know all the answers in advance.  We can not always make the "right" decision.  And we can not be perfect parents 100% of the time.

WE try our best.  We do our best. Then we live with the decisions we have made.

Someone once told me that no one can give you guilt. No one can force you to feel guilty.  Guilt is an emotion that we generate within our selves, and we can choose what we want to do with that emotion.  We can wallow in self pity, we can paint ourselves the martyr and point fingers at everyone else, we can rail at society for forcing these emotions upon us...
...or we can accept it, use it to guide our future steps and start healing from the hurt it has caused.

The choices someone else has made for their family and their children and themselves is not about "us".  Even if we have spent countless hours advising and educating someone, they still are responsible for making the final decision for themselves.  If they make a decision that we don't agree with, well..... that it their prerogative and THEY have to live with the final outcome.

Why is it that people feel the need to resort to insults and swearing? I realize that parenting involves a huge amount of decisions and most parents base their choices on their own past and the influences of their family and friends. AND that nothing cause more debate than the choices in parenting that each mother and father has to make. Where there is discussion, there is debate. where there is debate, there is arguments….. FINE! I get it.

But why do people who have made their decisions feel the need to scream and throw tantrums and play junior highschool school yard games?!?

OK I’m goign to be blunt and just come out and say this:

Why is it that people who make choices that are NOT based on facts and research are the worst offenders when it comes to mud slinging?! Be it Breastfeeding and formula feeding, circumcision debates, natural birthing vs interventions and elective C/Sections, CIO or AP parenting……. I’m sorry but the facts are the facts. If you don’t want to know the facts, or are happy in the decisions you’ve made Regardless of the facts, then fine- it’s your decision to make. But don’t come screaming after others, calling names and swearing and making horrifying allegations just because they are stating the facts!!!! If you’re satisfied with your decisions then be satisfied that you're doing what you want to do. But don’t call me a breast nazi, because I’m posting information about breastfeeding that is based on solid facts that are accepted world wide by every single major health organization!!

We all make “mistakes”.  W all make decisions based on the information (or lack there of) that we have at the time. If it turns out to be wrong, well we just have to deal with it and do what we can to rectify the situation, if possible. I started my eldest daughter Quinlin on baby cereal at 3.5 months!!! Why? because a health nurse told me to. So I did. Now I know it wasn’t the right thing to do and yes, I feel guilty that I didn’t research it better before going ahead. But I don’t turn around and get defensive and insult people who talk about Baby Led Weaning!!!

…..If you’re feeling guilty because you know that you didn’t make the right decision, then don’t yell at me. Own up to it and accept it. and make changes that will ease your guilt. Deal with it. Don't sling mud at others just because you can’t face up to your own mistakes or poor decisions.

And if someone makes a decision that goes against your grain, well, it's their decision to make.  Yelling and pointing fingers is NOT going to make them change their decision.  I don't know about you, but I'm stubborn: if someone starts ranting at me and telling me I did it all wrong, there is a good chance that I'll embrace my mistake even further and try to justify it even more.

I wrote an article for Natural Mothering a while ago on this topic.  Whenever I start to get hot under the collar over a burning debate I'll re-read this article just to remind my self that how I respond to the debate/argument/question, may have a far greater influence depending on how I reply.

 

When Activism becomes Detractivism

Written by Dani Arnold-McKenny   

Everyone has something that they are passionate about. Everyone has a cause that owns a special corner of their heart. Whether its saving the rain forests, freeing Tibet, going "green", equal rights for women, pro abortion, anti abortion, pro capital punishment, anti capital punishment, etc , ........Everyone has at least one thing that they are willing to stand up for, that they will jump into the fray with both (metaphorical) fists swinging, debating their passion till the wee hours of the morning.

You are right. You know you're right. And you will defend your cause/choice/moral obligation regardless of how many oppose you, or how loudly they bellow, because you have the passion that drives you to do so.

Now obviously some causes are considered more worthy than others to the average person on the street. Some causes are such social absolutes, that no one in their right mind would ever take the opposing chair against it in a debate. No one is going to disagree that someone in a wheelchair should have access to the public library. Or refute that all children deserve a roof over the heads, food on the table, access to education and medical care. These are definitely safe causes to champion: easy, non confrontational and completely acceptable.

But what if your passion is for a something that isn't so non confrontational? What if that passion that fills that special corner of your heart is one side of a heated debate, waiting to erupt into a boiling frenzy just by openly declaring it to others? What then? Will you enter into the grand melee carrying your colours aloft and brandishing your cause with sharpened words, leaving a field of the fallen in your wake, regardless of their cries for mercy (or at least for a moment to explain)? Or are you the enlightened one that sits with infinite patience, willing to speak the words of reason with an aura of calm that might quiet even the most boisterous of opposers?

The two sides of this coin can be likened to Vinegar and honey: One of them will catch the flies.

Passion burns brightest in the middle of a heated debate. And it can be beautiful in its eloquence, or scarred and ugly in its words of condemnation and accusation. Is the message getting lost because the flame is blinding? Is the message getting lost because the fire it possesses is burning everyone it comes in contact with

I am an advocate for Breastfeeding and Natural Childbirth Education. And let me tell you, nothing lights the fires of debate like both of these topics. Breastfeeding Advocates are very passionate in their endeavors to normalize Breastfeeding and to build support systems. Education is the key to changing the world around us. But when does education become condemnation? When does Activism become Detractivism?...

HERE to read the entire article