Mothers breastfeeding babies, Fed is Best Foundation.

Please Support Fed is Best on #GivingTueday!

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We are making preparations for #GivingTuesday! This year, Facebook and Paypal are joining to match up to $7 million of donations made to non-profit organizations through Facebook. Please consider logging on to our Facebook page at midnight on November 27, 2018 to make your donation to Fed is Best. Put it on your calendar!

This year, we are extending our campaign to hospitals and health officials. We have developed our information for hospitals page on the Fed is Best website and are developing our Fed is Best Foundation hospital guidelines for Safe Infant Feeding. We also plan to send our health professional advocates to Washington, D.C. to raise awareness on the safety issues that insufficiently fed newborns face on a daily basis.

Please help us in our mission. For those who would like to donate today or on a monthly basis, please consider going to our new donation page.

Thank you to all our supporters! #FedisBest

Infant receiving phototherapy treatment.

Nurses Are Speaking Out About The Dangers Of The Baby-Friendly Health Initiative

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When the Fed Is Best Foundation launched two years ago, a few nurses sent us messages about their experiences working in a BFHI hospital. Some of the nurses felt comfortable speaking out because they left their jobs or retired early, as they did not want to be part of the restrictive breastfeeding policies that were implemented. They shared common concerns of watching exclusively breastfed babies being refused supplementation, while babies were crying out in hunger from not enough colostrum which resulted in NICU admissions.

Two years later, we now receive messages from nurses, physicians, LC’s and other health professionals, regularly.  They express their concerns while asking for help and for patient resources. They tell us their stories and they need support and direction of what to do about unethical and dangerous practices 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. Continue reading →

One-month-old twins in dinosaur onesies.

Feed Your Baby—When Supplementing Saves Breastfeeding and Lives

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Jody Segrave-Daly, RN, MS, IBCLC

Mothers are taught that it’s rare not to produce enough milk to exclusively breastfeed in nearly every breastfeeding book, mommy group, and hospital breastfeeding class. The truth is we have limited studies that provide an accurate percentage of mothers who can produce enough milk for their babies for the recommended six months. Although actual rates of adequatemilk productionare unknown, some estimates range from 12-15 percent or more.

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Sleeping newborn baby.

“Is Baby-Friendly Safe?”: BFHI Safety Issues Discussed at National Neonatology Conference

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Full video presentation available at Contemporary Forums Online.

Las Vegas, Nevada — On September 6, 2018, the national neonatology conference, “The Fetus and Newborn Conference” was held in Las Vegas, Nevada. Among the speakers was Jay Goldsmith, M.D., Neonatologist and Professor of Pediatrics at Tulane University, Member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on the Fetus and Newborn who gave a talk entitled, “Is Baby-Friendly Baby Safe?”

In the talk, he discussed the case of an Oregon woman who has filed an $8.6 million lawsuit against her hospital, Portland Adventist Medical Center, and a nurse who cared for her and her baby after accidentally suffocating her newborn after falling asleep with him in her hospital bed. According to the Washington Post, she had delivered her son by cesarean section a few days earlier and was given narcotic pain medication and sleep aids. A nurse gave her newborn to her while she was still drowsy and groggy to breastfeed in her hospital bed. About an hour after being left to breastfeed, the baby was found gray, not breathing with compromised vital signs in the mother’s arms after which he was rushed to the nursery. The baby received CPR and was put on life support but the child sustained severe and permanent brain injury. He ultimately died at 10 days of age. Continue reading →

Happy family with newborn baby outdoors.

How I Learned That Fed is Best

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by Jen Gamarano

I hate to admit it, but before I got pregnant, and even when I was pregnant, I was already a judgmental mom. I started watching documentaries about natural birth and breastfeeding years before I even entertained the idea of having children because it fascinated me. Women’s bodies are amazing. We are capable of growing, birthing, and feeding a brand new life and I was on board for doing all of it naturally because biology is perfect and I was made to do this – or so I thought. I looked at moms who opted for epidurals and thought “If only they knew about natural birth and how amazing it is”, or those who formula fed and thought  “How sad” because breast milk is magical and formula will never be able to measure up. I hate to admit these things, but I have to admit them so you know just how much this journey has changed me.

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