Re: [ozmidwifery] M&CH and Infant formula

[Marilyn Kleidon]

Sorry too Kirsten I also had a long day and my landlady was sanding our house, ahh!!  It now smells like a chemical factory...so why am I inside at the computer!!!Help!!   I know only too well how overwhelming the american culture can be having lived there for 25 yrs always dying to get back. So I should be more sensitive especially when it seems the lovely place I left in the 70's had become something else...I loved the land of the long weekend, the laid back aussie lifestyle and it has all gone, or just about. Maybe that was a dinosaur type lifestyle at least that seams to be the story I am told.  but....      As much as that paragraph is full of labels I guess I don't like them very much. When I left australia in 78 the last thing I was ever going to do was have a baby there: I had read all of the books and i knew all about american medicine, hospitals, so much so that i had my children immunised before we left i was so terrified of their health care. Low and behold I had my own nurse practitioner and midwife for all of my health care, my girls had a nurse practitioner  and we had an almost homebirth with midwives at a real alternative birthing centre in 81. Not a doctor in sight or drug or intervention, very active in the  shower for an hour or so, children and grandparents there and I knew my midwife, her assistant took our birth photos. We even had homevisits postnatally. And it was cheap: covered by our student health care. This was Chicago, Illinois.  I have since met age mates who were involuntarily drugged and had their wrists strapped to the bed with their legs in stirrups also in 1981 but in a public hospital in Kansas. That together with my journey through the homebirth scenario in the western states has made me really aware of just how diverse the country is in every possible aspect. Maybe because of my lifestyle and views I have known more people like Michael Moore while there than George W.   All that being said i am not a supporter of any of the drug companies period.   marilyn   ----- Original Message ----- From: Kirsten Blacker To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2004 5:55 AM Subject: Re: [ozmidwifery] M&CH and Infant formula My apologies if my comments have caused offense.   They were written at the end of a long day, at the end of a long week which included the ACMI conference which whilst educational and satisfying was exhausting. I should know better than to fire off an email when my brain is that fried!   Please also understand that when I compare our system to that of the USA I do it based on living and working there for 2 years as and OB RN/ prenatal educator. One of the things that absolutely horrified me during my time there was the ever present formula advertising that to my knowledge wasn't happening here - obviously that's not the case based on the story we heard of the child health nurses.   Kirsten Blacker ----- Original Message ----- From: Marilyn Kleidon To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2004 11:22 PM Subject: Re: [ozmidwifery] M&CH and Infant formula Could we just STOP the anti American hyperbole that flows through and through this list!   First of all this happened here somewhere in Australia. And on last look nestle is a Swiss company!   Does everything always sound and taste better if it has some kind of UK or NZ lilt to it??   I really suggest you all look a little more closely. Some good ideas actually do come out of the USA although many of you wouldn't know because you wouldn't even look at them.   I am getting more and more fed up.   marilyn ----- Original Message ----- From: Kirsten Blacker To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 03, 2004 3:53 AM Subject: Re: [ozmidwifery] M&CH and Infant formula AARRGGHH This is one of those "that only happens in America" stories. I can't believe such a flagrant breach of WHO codes. I would complain to the nurse manager of the unit, and if you don't get and appropriate response from her, then the director of nursing of the hospital.   And people wonder why there is still a nestle boycott going on out there...   Kirsten Blacker ----- Original Message ----- From: barbara glare & chris bright To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 03, 2004 6:07 AM Subject: [ozmidwifery] M&CH and Infant formula Hi,   Last week I had rather an upsetting experience.  I was invited to speak at a meeting of local Maternal and Child health nurses about the National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines on infant feeding.  I did this in my capacity as a volunteer breastfeeding counsellor.   I reached the venue at the agreed time, my talk well prepared, overheads done (at considerable personal expense ) to find......no-one there.  But the table was covered in Nestle sample bags,formula samples and empty kit kat wrappers.  The nurses were out to lunch......paid for by Nestle.  The first people arrived back 1/2 an hour later than I had been asked to attend.  My 20 mnth old daughter was also with me, and while she was well-behaved, she had already been "good" for 1/2 an hour.   Is this common practice in Maternal and child health in Victoria/Australia.  Does Maternal and child health have a code of ethics?  Does this still go on in hospitals (I would have thought (hoped) not.  Who would be the most appropriate person/group to complain to.  I don't believe health professionals should compromise themselves in this way, and it is in complete contravention of the WHO code.  Some of the nurses have phoned me personally since then to apologise.  I think they could tell I was unimpressed   Warm Regards, Barb IBCLC