Post-Katrina recommendations for pregnant women

All that they needed to include in the "necessary" items for teams would have been "Lactation Consultants," and I'd have agreed with a lot of the article (all? most?) .... Seriously, the rest are all good to have (although I don't see why formula is necessary, at least for the newborns - the breastmilk would be SO MUCH safer for baby than formula in those sorts of situations, so why not just work hard to help mother/infant initiate bf?) -- but for a mother who's ff a 5 month old, the formula will be necessary, relactation is a long row to hoe at that point and baby needs some sustenance sooner than the mom would be able to produce adequate milk.

Ironic that they didn't point out that the International relief agencies discourage formula donations because they don't want the bf moms they're helping, switching to ff during the aftermath of the disaster. : [obviously I agree with the International Relief agencies, not the plan in the Post]

I DO agree that emphasizing the importance of bf for pregnant women in areas where disasters could be expected (quake zones, tornado zones, hurricane zones, etc.) is a good thing to do. When I watched Katrina clips (the guy with the two week old he was holding up the cameras saying, "We need formula!" etc.) -- I kept yelling at the TV "Well, put the baby to breast - something is better than nothing right now!!!" And hoping that one of the National Guardswomen sent would be a bf mom who could help moms with relactation. Training in relactation would be really important I'd think.

I got into a debate about this on another board shortly after Katrina -- many moms were saying that even though they exclusively bf'd, they thought it would be good to have a "week's supply or more" of RTF formula on hand, and that they kept it on hand (or planned to get it) in case of an emergency and were kind of snide to those of us who didn't think that was necessary. I told them - look, RTF isn't available for my daughter's allergies anyway. So enough safe water for me to drink, and food for me so I can continue to bf, is all I need. Got that covered, and moving on. It makes me feel a lot safer, knowing that my child's food source is readily available as long as I am readily available ... and I intend to be readily available!

Quote:
Tornados wiped out the power in our neighborhood when my daughter was 8 days old. We were having nipple preference problems and I was pumping and bottlefeeding sometimes even though I knew I shouldn't. The 4-night power outage certainly solved this problem.

Seeing that footage of limp babies in their parents' arms right before I gave birth sealed my commitment to breastfeeding, for sure!

When katrina happened and bf'ing was brought up many times (often by me ) as a way to prevent that sort of tragedy (the hungry babies, not the hurricane) people would jump all over me. Ya wanna know why?

Wait for it.....

Because there's no way a woman could maintain a milk supply with that sort of stress on her. : So formula would be necessary even for bf'ing moms in that situation. I heard this from 2 people IRL and countless people on the internet. Unfreakinbelievable that people actually believe this. Sure SOME women might lose their milk supply from the stress. But I read that lots of women took on other babies and their milk supplies adjusted to feed those babies too.

My sister's ff'd DD was only about a month old when katrina hit and she was so emotional seeing those hungry babies on tv and it really hit home for her. I mentioned that she could always stockpile formula and water if it made her feel better and *I* was glad because I breastfeed and she's one of the people who said bf'ing women's milk would dry up. Then she said her DD would have starved if that had been them. I said, "no, *I* would have fed you baby and NO, my milk probably wouldn't have dried up." Then I explained to her how bf'ing works and our bodies are *designed* to still produce milk, even under tremedous stress and famine.

So maybe these lists are compiled by people who have no clue about bf'ing and assume what everyone else assumes. That bf'ing doesn't work in times of stress. Not an excuse really, just maybe a possibility why they *conveniently* left bf'ing off the list. Pure ignorance and nothing else. Unless formula companies gave them a kick-back, which is also entirely possible, I guess.