ABC is not the only major media source that voiced concern. In a front
page article in The Wall Street Journal on July 22, 1994, reporter Kevin
Helliker told the story of an infant who by the end of the first week had
taken in so little food that he suffered irreversible brain damage. The
mother kept trying to nurse her newborn on demand, despite initial
difficulties. Other cases were documented, including two that resulted in
death as a result of mothers not recognizing the signs of inadequate milk
production.
Similar reports appeared in Time on August 22, 1994, U.S. News & World
Report on December 5, 1994, and on the television news magazine
Primetime Live, August 4, 1994. According to The Wall Street Journal,
nearly 200,000 infants a year are diagnosed with “failure to thrive”—
most of which are associated with “just feed more often” advice.
- Journal of Human Lactation, Volume 14, Number 2, June 1998, p.
101
Chapter Three
(^) 1. This conclusion was drawn from a study based on thirty-two
mother-infant pairs observed over two years. Sixteen families were from
the La Leche League, and the other sixteen were not. “Sleep-Wake
Patterns of Breast-Fed Infants in the First Two Years of Life,” Pediatrics
77, no. 3, (March 1986): p. 328.
- Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (New York,
Ballantine Books 1987), p. 44. - Ibid., p. 6.
- American Academy of Pediatrics, “Does Bed Sharing Affect the
Risk of SIDS?” Pediatrics 100, no. 2 (August 1997): p. 727. - American Academy of Pediatrics, Policy Statement. PEDIATRICS,
Vol. 116 no. 5 (November 2005): p. 1247. - An article published in The Brown University Child Behavior and
Development Letter (Aug 1990), discussed sleep problems encountered
by children who slept with their parents.