Category: Evidence-Based Medicine

Clinicians’ Guide to Supporting Parents with Guilt About Breastfeeding Challenges

7 Comments

Written by Dr. Ruth Ann Harpur, Clinical Psychologist

A systematic review of the scientific literature indicates that women who intend to breastfeed but who later feed their babies formula consistently report feelings of guilt, anger, worry, uncertainty, and a sense of failure despite the relief that introducing formula after experiencing difficulties with breastfeeding may bring (Lakshman, Ogilvie, & Ong, 2009). Recent research also indicates that this group of new mothers are at particular risk for postnatal depression (Borra et al., 2015).

Clinicians are uniquely placed to provide compassionate care at a vulnerable time for this group of parents. Their attitude and words can invoke a sense of shame, judgment, and failure, or they can inspire compassion, reassurance, and emotional healing.

Continue reading →

Fed is Best Foundation Presentation to WHO Officials on Breastfeeding Complications, Hospitalizations, Brain Injury and Disability

6 Comments

Christie del Castillo-Hegyi, M.D., Co-Founder

On Sept. 22, 2017, senior members of the Fed is Best Foundation, and guests including a neonatologist from a leading U.S. tertiary care hospital who wished to remain anonymous and a pediatric endocrinologist, Dr. Paul Thornton, M.D, from Cook Children’s Hospital Fort Worth, lead author of the Pediatric Endocrine Society’s newborn hypoglycemia guidelines met via teleconference with top officials of the WHO Breastfeeding Program: Dr. Laurence Grummer-Strawn, Ph.D., Dr. Nigel Rollins, M.D. and Dr. Wilson Were, M.D. to express their concerns about the complications arising from the BFHI Ten Steps and to ask what, if any, monitoring, research, or public outreach the WHO has planned regarding the risks of accidental starvation of exclusively breastfed newborns. The Foundation members who attended were 1) Christie del Castillo-Hegyi, MD, Co-Founder, 2) Jody Segrave-Daly, RN, IBCLC, Co-Founder, 3) Julie Tibbets, JD, Partner at Alston & Bird, LLP, Pro-Bono Attorney for the Foundation, 4) Brian Symon, MD, Senior Advisor, and 5) Hillary Kuzdeba, MPH, former quality improvement program coordinator at a childrens hospital , managing infant feeding projects and Senior Advisor.

This is a video of the presentation given to the WHO officials:

We believe all babies deserve to be protected from hunger and thirst every single day of their life and we believe that education on Safe Infant Feeding should be free. If you would like to make a donation to support the Fed is Best Foundation’s mission to teach every parent Safe Infant Feeding, please consider making a one-time or recurring donation to our organization.

Donate to Fed is Best

 

Thank you from the Fed is Best Foundation!

 

 

Why the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine Guidelines for “Medically Necessary” Supplementation Make the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative Unsafe

5 Comments

by Christie del Castillo-Hegyi, M.D., Co-Founder of the Fed is Best Foundation

On September 22, 2017, senior members of the Fed is Best Foundation met with the top officials of the World Health Organization (WHO) Breastfeeding Program. We learned that the WHO has never studied the complications of the WHO Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding and the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI). We learned they have no studies commissioned to monitor the complications. Despite being presented data on the complications caused by allowing newborns to fast for days to achieve exclusive breastfeeding, they declined our offer to help make the guidelines safer and more ethical.  To watch the presentation given to the WHO officials, please go to this link. We learned that they have known about the risks of brain injury from exclusive breastfeeding and yet refuse to inform the public and health professionals. We learned that their provision for preventing brain injury consisted of telling health professionals to look out for “convulsions, lethargy and being unable to feed,” which are late signs of newborn brain injury. As a result, the WHO Ten Steps and the BFHI has created to an epidemic of infant feeding complications, hospitalizations, brain injury and disability in the developed and developing world. This constitutes one of the largest and most egregious violations of patient and human rights in the history of public health. They have asked for comments from the public regarding their draft revision of the breastfeeding guidelines, which make no changes to the recommendation, “give infants no food or drink other than breastmilk unless medically indicated,” while providing patients no information on the risks of avoiding supplementation. This is the official response of the Fed is Best Foundation to their request. Continue reading →

Donor Breast Milk – Is It Worth It?

3 Comments

Written by Hillary Kuzdeba, MPH

Many women in developed countries like the U.S. find that despite their best efforts, they are unable to exclusively breastfeed due to supply problems or other circumstances. They may feel pressured into finding some other way of ensuring their babies are exclusively breastfed, even though they cannot produce enough for baby. Adoptive parents may also feel pressure to provide breast milk. A lot of this pressure to provide breast milk comes from the over-exaggeration or misinterpretation of the benefits of breast milk on long term health outcomes, or from unfounded fears about infant formula.

Currently, there are two types of donor breast milk available to moms in the US, but only one type that is supported and recommended by major medical bodies like the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)(1, 2) and by the Fed is Best Foundation. Donor milk obtained from a milk bank or hospital is a safe and healthy alternative to mom’s own milk. (2) Milk banks thoroughly screen their donor moms to ensure the safety of the milk and pasteurize it following strict food safety protocols to destroy bacteria that can make infants very ill. Milk banks are similar to blood banks. These organizations are designed to make sure human body fluids, whether breast milk or blood products are screened and safe before they are used by vulnerable people like newborns and sick patients. This is because human body fluids, including breast milk, can pass transmissible infections like HIV from person to person.(3-5) For more information on the milk bank process, please visit https://www.hmbana.org/. Continue reading →

Dangers of Insufficient Breastfeeding Presented at the First Coast Neonatal Symposium

2 Comments

Dr. Christie del Castillo-Hegyi was invited to present her research on the brain- and life-threatening consequences of insufficient feeding of exclusively breastfed newborns at the First Coast Neonatal Symposium held by the Department of Neonatology at the University of Florida at Jacksonville on April 24, 2017.  Here is the video of the lecture presented.

Note: A segment of the lecture was excluded due to copyright laws and will be posted once permission is granted to publish it.

Continue reading →