The whole Katrina disaster makes me mad…. I can understand the storm but it is what happened after that makes me mad….I can’t believe how much disregard for human life is being seen… even now.. a week later… The stories are heart wrenching and I really can’t imagine what it was like to be in those conditions…
I also can’t imagine what reasons could be good enough to explain why it took so long for help to come to those people… Why did people go so long without food and Water?
There are so many things that tick me off… One thing is that the whole thing seems to have such a harsh underlying racial aspect that I just can’t ignore and to what I have seen the media can’t even ignore…
Of course breastfeeding came to my mind… I may be looked down upon for thinking this but why the heck where babies starving to death and dying of thirst… I can’t help but put the blame on the Formula companies and society in general for this… People in our culture feel like they are so immune to not having the basics like drinking water that they don’t even give a second thought… There were children born during the days after the hurricane or during the hurricane and they were talking about how scared they were of running out of formula… not even desperate times can make them change their views…
I cried when I saw a small 10 day old baby limp and needing nourishment… For sure the mom still had a bit of milk or could relactate… did she try?
Of course the Formula companies come off as heroes when they send trucks of baby formula… but they are the reason why the babies where starving in the first place…
A woman can make milk even in dire situations and though it is true that she needs to replenish herself the amount of water that it takes to feed two (her and the baby) can be given to her alone and both would survive and even better, the baby will have a clean source of milk complete with antibodies and even agents that work against diarrhoea (therefore they run less risk of getting even more dehydrated)
I really don’t want to come off as sending an “I told you so” message I just think that in the light of such disasters I really hope that in the future people can see that there are further risks to Formula feeding and that this is the exact reason why Nestle is seen as such evil in parts of the world that have children dying everyday because formula was brought in but there is no clean water supply…