I came across an extraordinary Facebook post yesterday.
It is extraordinary for four reasons:
1. A baby has been starved nearly to death in an effort to promote breastfeeding.
According to MilkMattersUk, the organization run by lactation consultant Charlotte Young (the Analytical Armadillo):
Meet H, a nearly 9 week old baby we met this weekend. H is just back at slightly above the weight at which they were born; we’ve plotted their birthweight and last weight into a growth chart, to give you a visual representation….
How did this horror happen?
Leah Drexler, Yashed LC, PRIVATELY acknowledges babies are starving, but PUBLICLY denies it.
“[O]ne midwife noted some concerns and suggested a feeding group, where they were told to stop expressing and supplementing, relax and just “feed feed feed”. Seen weekly at jaundice clinic, reluctant to weigh but did after mum pressure, no concerns noted.”
The baby was starving to death because healthcare providers apparently believed their own lies that insufficient breastmilk is rare and that all breastfeeding problems can be solved by breastfeeding harder.
Think — just for a moment — about the suffering this baby endured. He was forced to cannibalize his own body to survive 9 solid weeks of hunger.
2. Lactation professionals — who are responsible for this horror — posted the evidence because they want more MONEY.
H is a prime example of what happens when you strip maternity and child services of their budgets, staff and in some cases, the removal of the whole infant feeding team. H’s family sought private support after their concerns about growth were persistently dismissed, but never mind falling through the cracks, we’re falling off cliffs!
How could anyone be so willfully blind? This baby starved for 9 weeks because aggressive efforts to promote breastfeeding have already received TOO MUCH funding. There was no lack of support; there was TOO MUCH support for breastfeeding and not enough compassion for the suffering baby. But this — like every breastfeeding tragedy — is viewed by lactation professionals as an opportunity to promote themselves and their incomes.
3. Lactation professionals are aware that it happens ALL THE TIME and aren’t doing anything to stop it.
Look at these posts from the Facebook group LACTWORLD, a group run by Yashed LC (Leah Drexler), commenting on this starving baby.
1. These are the reasons Fed Is Best exist — as much as I hate it, first we have to prevent this from happening systematically
2. Yes we have colleagues guilty of perpetuating this and even whole health systems that desperately need to be remediated
3. These are the things that make me rate in my own outpatient/Peds clinical practice …
So lactation professionals KNOW that this is happening, see it in their own practices, are aware that even WHOLE HEALTH SYSTEMS are causing this. The follow up comments in the thread reveal other lactation professionals acknowledging infant starvation.
4. But the MOST remarkable thing about the hideous suffering that this baby endured is that Leah Drexler, who just privately acknowledged that this happens all the time went on record only 10 weeks ago PUBLICLY DENYING that infants are starving under the care of lactation professionals.
As I noted on Oct. 13, Drexler was asked by lactivists to comment on a Fed Is Best Facebook post.
Fed Is Best quoted a mother:
My baby cried for over two days in a row in the baby friendly hospital… It was just starvation. It breaks my heart to remember that.
Leah Drexler — the same LC who PRIVATELY acknowledges “we have colleagues guilty of perpetuating this” — PUBLICLY said:
STARVING KIDS DON’T HAVE ENERGY TO CRY STRAIGHT FOR DAYS IN A ROW.
They stop crying by the second day and start sleeping way. Too. Much. That’s when the high bilirubin sets in.There’s many thing that could make a child cry continuously after birth, but lack of calories to expend is not one of them.
Kids that truly aren’t getting any food by day 2-3, you can barely get them to open their eyes …
Drexler and other lactation professionals PRIVATELY acknowledge that they are harming babies, but PUBLICLY gaslight the mother reporting the harm and the Foundation trying to stop it.
How can they live with themselves?
