Four years ago this week I first wrote that the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative posed a deadly risk to babies.
I referred to a recently published paper about deaths and near deaths of babies who were smothered in their mothers’ hospital beds. Since that time, evidence of the dangers of breastfeeding have expanded to include tens of thousands of neonatal hospital readmissions per year at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, a mini-epidemic of severe neonatal dehydration and severe jaundice, as well as the brain injuries and deaths as a result.
[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The Baby Friendly Hospital initiative is deadly![/pullquote]
Concerns about the deadly impact of the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative have spread throughout the medical community with the publication of papers in major journals detailing the deadly consequences. The Fed Is Best Foundation was formed for the express purpose of preventing the deadly side effects of the BFHI. Now comes word of a lecture given at a major neonatology conference, The Fetus and Newborn 2018, currently taking place in Las Vegas.
Yesterday, Tulane neonatology Prof. Jay Goldsmith presented “Is ‘Baby Friendly’ Baby Safe?” The answer, tragically, is “NO!”
Indeed, the BFHI is in urgent need of updating.
Why? Prof. Goldsmith concentrated on the dangers of smothering and falls.
Prof. Goldsmith notes that the BFHI leads to injury and death among babies and it fails to follow the scientific evidence on pacifiers. Moreover based on what we know about safe sleep, the BFHI’s insistence on prolonged unsupervised periods of skin-to-skin contact in unsafe sleep conditions (soft bed, with an adult who is exhausted and potentially using sedating medications) could have been predicted to be harmful.
And then there are the falls.
The talk concentrated on smothering and falls, but according to a conference attendee, in the question and answer session that followed Dr. Goldsmith also noted excessive weight loss and an increase in potentially deadly neonatal hypernatremic dehydration and severe jaundice.
It is important to note that Dr. Goldsmith did not question the benefits of breastfeeding or breastfeeding promotion. He sought to draw attention to the fact that the Baby Friendly Hospital is injuring and killing babies and must be changed.
Why has Baby Friendly USA refused to change?
According to the conference attendee, Dr. Goldsmith pointedly noted that the BFHI has been a financial bonanza for Baby Friendly USA, over $6 million dollars in certification fees alone. While hospitals have been forced to shoulder the burden of liability payments for injured and dead babies, Baby Friendly USA has thus far escaped unscathed.
The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, far from being baby friendly is actually baby deadly. What does Baby Friendly USA plan to do about it (besides enjoy the millions in certification fees)?
Nothing!
