Author: B. Jody Segrave-Daly, RN, IBCLC

Here's an alt tag for the image: Two teaspoon measuring spoon and blue ball.

Dear Parents, Did You Know Just 2 Teaspoons Of Supplementation Can Protect Your Baby And Your Breastfeeding Journey?*

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Written by Jody Segrave-Daly, RN, IBCLC and Lynnette Hafken, MA, IBCLC

There have now been six studies showing that in some infants, a little bit of supplementation with two teaspoons (10 mL) of formula or donor breast milk after nursing had no effect on long-term breastfeeding. One study showed it prevented hospital readmissions in all of the supplemented newborns. Another showed it actually helped breastfeeding! 

Why aren’t medical and lactation professionals recommending this intervention?

Many medical and lactation professionals believe that a tiny amount of formula will contaminate the baby’s gut, causing lifelong health problems. They refuse to admit that formula supplementation can be helpful, and they have baseless concerns that temporary formula supplementation will become routine for all babies.  According to Baby-Friendly USA, “donor [breast] milk takes the fight out of this.” What they mean is that the few babies who are born in a hospital with donor milk can be fully fed, while the vast majority of babies who are born in hospitals without donor milk just have to tolerate hunger and thirst so as to avoid a few teaspoons of formula.  

Did you know two teaspoons of formula or donor milk has seven calories?  

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Tweet criticizing "Fed is Best" organization.

Lies, Slander And Lack Of Accountability By Lactation Consultant Serena Meyer

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Dear Serena Meyer, RN, IBCLC:

Your post has made unsubstantiated accusations and we would like to respond with the truth. Please start by reading our actual statements and the science we present, which can be found in our FAQs.  [Note: since Ms. Meyers has now edited her original post and deleted over 200 comments, screenshots of the post are included below.]

You (Serena Meyer) wrote:

Have you heard about Fed is Best? It’s an organization that believes that breastfeeding essentially starves babies, there is a lot of vitriol about breastfeeding and brain damage and death. It makes me feel pretty argumentative.

Every statement issued by the Foundation is cited. We rely on scientific evidence, not “belief.” We have never said breastfeeding starves babies; we have provided factual educational information that exclusive breastfeeding with insufficient supply or transfer can lead to acute and/or prolonged starvation. “Starvation” is a medical diagnosis, not “vitriol” or fear-mongering. Continue reading →

Crying newborn baby in someone's arms.

Baby-Friendly: Failure and the Art of Misdirection

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By Alex Fischer, PhD Candidate, Brooke Orosz, PhD, Jody Segrave-Daly, RN, IBCLC, Lynnette Hafken, MA, IBCLC and Christie Del Castillo-Hegyi, M.D.

Any good magician will tell you that the secret to their trade is misdirection—making the audience look one way while doing something the other way. And even knowing this, most of us are still baffled by a magician’s tricks. So it’s no wonder that Baby-Friendly USA (BFUSA) has tried to employ that same tactic in their statement titled “Fact vs FIB: The Impact of Baby-Friendly on Breastfeeding Initiation Rates.”  In this statement written by an anonymous author representing BFUSA, they attempt to dispute the findings of a recent study published in Journal of Pediatrics, “Outcomes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2018 Breastfeeding Report Card: Public Policy Implications” by Bass et al. This study examines the impact of statewide breastfeeding initiation rates as well as the impact of BFHI facilities on continued breastfeeding after hospital discharge (exclusive or combination). The Fed is Best Foundation read this study and agreed: “Baby-Friendly does not work.” These five words are the instigators of the entire statement by BFUSA and its misrepresentation of a very robust scientific study.  Continue reading →

Newborn baby's bath time.

Nurses Quit Because Of Horrific Experiences Working In Baby-Friendly Hospitals

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Photo Credit: Victorian Agency for Health Information

We regularly receive messages from nurses, physicians, LCs, and other health professionals. They express their concerns while asking for help and patient resources. They tell us their stories and they need support and direction on what to do about unethical and dangerous policies they are forced to practice. We collected their stories and are beginning a blog series of health professionals who are now speaking out about the Baby-Friendly Health Initiative and the WHO Ten Steps of Breastfeeding.

Dianna Talter, Pediatric Emergency Department Nurse

I am a pediatric emergency department nurse traveler and sometimes, I worked on the mother-baby unit. I will never work on a mother-baby unit again because of the terrible conditions that mothers and babies are forced to endure because of the “Baby-Friendly” (BFHI) protocol!

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HAMLET: Tumor-killing protein research.

Is Breast Milk Stealing The Spotlight Of A Novel Anti-Tumor Compound?

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BY ALEXANDRIA FISCHER, PHD CANDIDATE AT THE RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE, STUDYING SYNTHETIC MICROBIAL COMMUNITIES

The “magic” of breastmilk is never-ending, plastered everywhere on social media with little regard to true scientific analysis. The idea that breastfeeding prevents cancer is a huge promotion point for why mothers should breastfeed at all costs. But while the cancer-preventing benefits are overblown, there is an even bigger claim surrounding the anti-cancer properties of breastmilk; that breast milk kills cancer, in and of itself.  This is a claim that I have seen made many times, so I decided to dig into the research and see where this claim came from and how truthful the claim is.

So where did this idea that breastmilk can kill cancer cells come from? It’s actually a long, and interesting accident of science.  In 1995 researchers were studying the adherence of bacteria to lung cancer cells in the presence of human milk fractions [1]. Fractionation is simply the process where the different molecule types in any substance are separated from one another. One of the tested fractions showed not only inhibition of bacterial adherence but also induced apoptosis of the tumor cells. Apoptosis is just a fancy word for cell death. This fraction was α-lactalbumin, an abundant protein in milk. However, α-lactalbumin in its natural state has no effect on tumor cells.  So what happened in the 1995 study? It seems that the researchers fractionated the milk at a low pH (acidic) implying that there was some kind of change in the structure of the protein. Further work showed that a reaction between the α-lactalbumin and oleic acid (acids lower pH) form the HAMLET compound [2]. HAMLET stands for Human α-lactalbumin Made LEthal to Tumors. HAMLET is an incredibly interesting compound that induced cell death (apoptosis) in cancer cells but not human cells.

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