All About Women | Women

Dr Karleen Gribble, speaking at the Australian Breastfeeding Association's Hot Milk conference in August 2007. Dr Gribble outlines starkly why the "breast is best" message does nothing more or less, than make formula sound 'good enough', and that we must change the paradigm if there is any chance of increasing breastfeeding rates.

The message that formula is not benign, and that infants deprived of breastfeeding, have higher rates of illness and disease, is not a comfortable one. We have this lovely cosy image that formula feeding is only dangerous in poor countries, with bad hygiene. 

Even then, when those very same conditions happen to us, it doesn't appear to make a difference. Dr Gribble relates that even when babies' lives are directly in danger, such as leaving hospital on formula, and being released into hurricane wracked New Orleans, where people were dying and clean water was not available... the doctors still couldn't bring themselves to tell mothers that formula feeding would put their babies' lives at risks.

But it's not only in poor countries that formula feeding increases health risks to babies and mothers. Formula feeding is itself intrinsically risky, as babies suffer from both the lack of breastfeeding, and the risks of using modified cow's milk on tiny newborn guts.

Formula fed babies suffer from higher rates of gastroenteritis, ear infections, certain cancers, diabetes, heart disease, life threatening sleep apnoea in adulthood... mothers of formula fed babies suffer higher rates of breast cancer.

Leaving mothers in ignorance of these facts is simply criminal. How can any mother make an informed choice, if she doesn't have the facts? 

Likewise, how can mothers using formula, do so as safely as possible, if they don't know that powdered infant formula is not sterile, and as many as 14% of batches are contaminated by salmonella and enterobacter sakazakii?

Breast is no longer best - it's just what you feed babies. Lack of it, increases health risks. The message that needs to get through is not that breast is best... it's that formula is inadequate nutrition for babies.

If you choose to refuse your baby your breast, you should at least know what risks you are taking on in both your baby's health, and your own. You should be empowered to minimise those risks as far as you possible can, and you should have a right to proper lactation support that doesn't get in the way of establishing breastfeeding if you are happy for the baby to have your breast.

And if you had no choice but to use formula, you deserve to have it made as safe as possible for your baby. You shouldn't be getting your information from the people who need to sell it to you, to keep their jobs.

No baby ever chose a bottle. Babies are born to breastfeed.

Everytime you use "breast is best" you knock that down a little, and allow the formula companies to make merry on mothers' ignorance. A lot of profit to be made in that silence on the risks, in that gagging of the truth. A lot of sick babies in hospitals on drips, a lot of mothers out of their minds with worry, on why baby is projectile vomiting again. A huge amount of potential donated milk, left uncollected, as formula companies flood the culture with the fallacy that formula is needed. Formula is never needed. It's just that mostly, it's all that's available. If there is no human milk, better formula than raw cow's milk. It's that simple. Better than the last resort. 

The miracle of the human race is that we survive large periods of famine and drought. We're built to survive on inadequate nutrition, and get to the next generation for the Good Stuff to heal us. We're allowing this amazing ability to then allow us to decide to feed our babies inadequate nutrition.. can you spell irony?

Breast is no longer best... formula is inadequate... pass it on. (Even if you have to whisper it... in case you get your head blown off for daring to speak the truth.)

Just Call Me Daisy is an online project, to collect breastfeeding stories from mothers, and collate them into a book.

Breastfeeding always gets the misery stories and the grief stories and the "how dare you make me feel bad for choosing formula" screams.

It's very rare that Mums are allowed to just have fun and celebrate their own worked-hard-and-made-it voice, and this project is designed to do just that. Details and submissions here.

This image is from the BBC website, and shows a mother nursing her baby as they shelter from Hurricane Ike.

It shows perfectly why breastfeeding is so vital in emergency situations. The mother is calm and relaxed, as she waits out the storm, no need for panic over finding formula, or clean water, or bottles, or ... anything. Have baby on breast, am safe and secure. Baby at home on her body, utterly secure too. :-)

Such pictures are rare, and in some ways, becoming rarer. It's important that breastfeeding babies are socially documented, by such photos as above. The business of being a mother, and of being a child, is often overlooked in social history, and babies nursing at the breast need to be clearly seen at all levels of society.

Something that Jennifer James has long recognised, and promoted, in her personal blog, Black Breastfeeding, which has always been listed at the bottom of this blog's link sites. She's always posted excellent and well researched photos and items about both breastfeeding and formula feeding.

She's taken this aspect of her main blog, and created a new blog, dedicated entirely to archiving such photos. "... she is on a quest to find information and historic photographs showing moms breastfeeding in public before it became taboo."

If you have such photos, I'm sure she'd like to hear from you. The new blog can be found here, and it is wonderful! I've lifted the photo below from it!

Enjoy!

Send Jack A Fiver
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This is a chain letter. We ask you send it on to at least ten people, and post it on a few bulletin boards to boot. Nothing will happen to you if you don't. Your cat won't die, your grandmother won't fall off a ladder, and your car will not crash. If you do send it on, you will get a nice warm glow from A Job Well Done. If you then also Send Jack A Fiver, you will feel super human and invincible - You Have Made A Difference!

Dr Jack Newman is one of the nicest people on the face of the planet. He and his colleagues, are totally dedicated to one thing: happy breastfeeding babies.

Send Jack A Fiver

He and his staff give of their time, effort and expertise, to anyone, anywhere. Jack has sent one-to-one support letters to Nursing Matters, giving detailed professional opinion on babies being threatened with separation from their mothers - at the drop of a hat. He's literally sent two pages of letter, return of email, late on a Friday evening after he should have gone home already.

He is someone who gives to breastfeeding babies - wherever they are.

And whilst he is physically located in Canada, his professionalism, and expertise, has touched, aided and encouraged, babies, mothers and lactation support people, all over the world. He gives free access to all his information sheets, videos and combined wisdom.

Send Jack A Fiver

Jack needs some money to keep up all this good work. His Government funding was budget 'cut' in 2005. Private donations that have kept the clinic running for over 3 years, end this month.

So this post is very simple, it's a plea to Send Jack A Fiver. And to ask others to do the same. If we all send a fiver, or even a dollar, if that's all we have, maybe they'll keep going for another month! Or even a year. :-)

Please cut-and-paste this message, and Send It On!

Have a look at this report, on the current outbreak of salmonella poisoning via infant formula in France...
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Good report. Well researched.

Question: What's missing?
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Eurosurveillance, Volume 13, Issue 39, 25 September 2008
Rapid communications
Nationwide outbreak of Salmonella enterica serotype Give infections in infants in France, linked to infant milk formula, September 2008
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On Thursday 18 September 2008, the hospital of Nantes in west France informed the District Health Office of a case of salmonellosis in an exclusively bottle-fed infant. On Monday morning 22 September, two additional cases of salmonellosis in infants were reported by the hospital of Niort in southwest France. The serotype of the three cases was unknown at that time.
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At the same time, the database of the French national reference centre (NRC) for Salmonella showed a recent increase in the proportion of Salmonella enterica serotype Give isolates from infants. The overall number of S. Give isolates received by the NRC in 2008 was 19, similar compared to the same period in previous years. However, six of the recent isolates had been obtained from infants, whereas this proportion was zero in previous years.
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Epidemiological investigationsAn investigation was started to identify any common exposures between the three reported cases of infant salmonellosis, and to identify the serotype(s) involved. In addition, we investigated the cases of S. Give in infants identified by the NRC.
The parents of the three reported infant salmonella cases were interviewed by the district health office on their consumption of foods and drink and other exposures.
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The infants, aged 9 weeks, and 4 and 5 months respectively, had developed symptoms of febrile diarrhoea between 13 and 18 September and had been hospitalised between 17 and 19 September. The infants had not been in contact with other diarrhoea cases, and had no common exposures except for their infant formula milk. All three drank the same brand (brand X) formula milk. The batch number of the product consumed during the days before the onset of symptoms was known for two cases. The serotype of one of the three isolates was known on 25 September and confirmed as Give.
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As of 25 September, five of the six infant cases of S. Give in the NRC database have been investigated. The infants are between 1.5 and 4.5 months of age and live scattered throughout France. They developed symptoms between 17 and 28 September: all had diarrhoea, which was bloody for four infants, four had fever, and two were hospitalised. The parents of all five infants reported feeding their infants the same brand X of infant powdered formula milk in the week before onset of symptoms. The batch number is known for one case and it is the same batch as in the two cases mentioned above. No other common exposures were identified.
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The preliminary results of the investigation strongly suggest the brand X formula milk as the vehicle of transmission. On 22 September, the authorities and the producer decided to recall the incriminated batch. On 23 September, the producer initiated the recall of this batch. On 24 September, the recall was extended to all batches since consumers had difficulties identifying the batch number. Consumers have been advised not to drink the product and to return it to the place of sale.
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Investigations are ongoing, particularly microbiological examination of the product and investigations of additional infant salmonellosis cases. Since the recall, five additional cases of infant salmonellosis have been reported. All five infants had consumed the incriminated product before illness. The isolates of these cases are currently being serotyped

Answer: The name of the formula brand and company, and the batch numbers.

In fact, they refer in the report to brand X. Remember, this is a current outbreak. They are recalling this product now, today.

The brand in question is Novalac's AR Digest, as reported by Reuters.

You will find no mention of the outbreak, or the batch numbers, on the Novalac website.

Even the mention of the 'traces' of salmonella in the news reports, have been flagged as misleading by medical sites, who have pointed out how serious this infection is for young babies.
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Know what else is missing? Have you seen any news reports about this?
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Thought not.
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Babies poisoned by people making money out of cutting formula with lethal substances - equals news. Babies being poisoned by the innate bacterial contamination of the formula making process - does not equal news.
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Wonder why the report doesn't name the company? Nowt to do with profits and public perception, I suppose. Nowt to do with being afraid of company backlash, or with not wanting mothers to understand the risks.
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Can't be. For as we all know in the reporting of the Chinese contamination stories... we abhor putting profits before baby's health, don't we?
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Makes you sick.
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Literally.

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Now, you weren't expecting that, were you? You were expecting an apology for the oversight, or an explanation that Mel B had done this bit, and no one wanted to offend her. You expected some sense of "oops, we got that wrong, better do something quick!"

You weren't expecting to be told it had been a deliberate use of iconography. An actual selection on how to convey a meaning in images - a semiotic construction.

And if you're anything like me, you certainly weren't expecting the semiotic construction to be that a baby bottle... signified motherhood.

Their answer, that they knew what they were doing, and that they did it with the thought of motherhood in mind.. just makes it all so much worse. As does their pat avoidance of the issue by stating you don't know what's in the bottle - which type of milk. How much more insulting can they get? End world poverty, by showing a rich mother with expressed breast milk in her bottle? Because she has the money for clean water, an electric pump, bottles, sterilisers and teats? Because Oxfam, I have news for you. The hygiene conditions that kills 4000 babies every day, from bottle use, means the baby is at risk from expressed breast milk too. And further, the pathetic reference to cow's milk... babies shouldn't get cow's milk for at least 12 months, and by then, they would not be on a bottle. They should be on a sippy cup, or even a cup.

In other words, your pathetic excuses for making this image in the way you have, just drives you deeper into the mire.

Motherhood is not about bottles. Bottles are about profit and separating mothers from their babies. Pumping culture exits mainly in countries with no proper paid maternity leave, and it's a huge sacrifice that many mothers make - pumping and sending their expressed breast milk to their babies in day care, whilst they labour on. Using this lack of paid maternity provision and the resultant struggle by mothers to get their milk into their absent babies... as the excuse to uphold your image of Mel B and this bottle... just further adds to the obscenity.

As does the reference to cow milk - raw animal milk is the worst possible food for young babies. It's fifth of five options outlined by the World Health Organisation and Unicef - below formula And cavalier comments that Mel B could be holding cow's milk in that bottle just further degrades your message about ending world hunger. Because of bottle feeding culture, babies do get given raw cow and goat milk in resource poor countries, in dirty bottles, and they die from it.

Four thousand babies, every day.

Four thousand.
Four thousand bereaved mothers.

Four thousand fathers digging a dirt grave.
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Four thousand.

Four thousand baby bottles.

Baby bottles do not signify motherhood. That's a formula exploitation message. Baby bottles signify greed. They signify exploitation. They signify baby deaths. Baby bottles are an image based on corporate exploitation of the poor, whether it be in resource rich areas, or in the shanties of the world's destitute. Baby bottles signify crippling debt and lack of proper medical care and support. Baby bottles carry connotations of death, disease and dirty water. Baby bottles contaminate lives.

And Oxfam is contaminated by this use of such a low and demeaning image. Contaminated by their assertion that the act of separating a hungry baby from its mother's breast by an artificial feeding device represents what it is to be a mother.

Looking for an image that signifies motherhood, Oxfam? Try this one:

What can you do? Well, you can follow in the footsteps of a lot of mothers today, and complain to Oxfam. Emily Subden, Interactive Campaigner, can be emailed . You can leave polite, moderate but passionate complaints on their blog. Be warned 'tho, that many mothers have done so today, and none have been published. But they need to hear your voice too. You can complain directly to your own countries Oxfam International office, and can find a list of eddress and contact phones numbers . You can write your polite and reasoned messages on their Facebook website.

edit: You can also contact the global In My Name blog directly, and point out how vital breastfeeding is to every single Millennium Goal, and how they need to be supporting breastfeeding, not glorifying bottle feeding. Comments are moderated, so it will be interesting to see if any are published here either.

edit 2!: Wonderful! The whiteactionband blogsite has more courage than Oxfam! It is allowing appropriate comments about the baby bottle image to be published. Well done whitebandaction - you rock!

You can email will.i.am asking him to edit out the offensive image on the video  (you have to register) and you can email Mel B and ask her to distance herself from this message, and perhaps reshoot her signature in a more appropriate way, (click 'contact' at bottom of page).

You can also leave comments on the YouTube video site, although again, many have been left today and none published so far. But someone has to be listening....

edit 3! You can also make your own 'signature' video of you and your breastfeeding baby, and send it to whitebandaction for inclusion on their web videos. You record you and your baby breastfeeding, with both your names clearly visible, and then upload the video to In My Name on YouTube. You could wear a name tag necklace with your baby's name scrawled on the back of its chubby little hands as it breastfeeds. You could sit on a beach, and write both your names in wet sand as baby feeds. You could film your baby breastfeeding, whilst you help your toddler spell out all your names in spaghetti letters. You could draw your names on hopscotch letters on a grid in the playground, and film your baby breastfeeding as your older kid plays hopscotch on the letters! You could write your name in magnetic letters of the fridge! You could.... let me know what you've done. I'll post any such videos sent to In My Name, here. Good Luck! Make A Difference!

edit 4: Oxfam responds and blames Mel B

Poor Mel B. There she is, doing her best, and she's let down by the very people supporting her. No responsibility at all, for those whose job it is to provide ethical support and advice to their celebrity endorsers. And Oxfam hang her out to dry like this, the very day after they stated the bottle shot was to represent motherhood. I hope no one here uses Oxfam's statement against Mel B. As this very response makes it clear she has not been given any ethical, or compassionate, support at all. Let's hope someone with a real ethical conscience at GCAP takes the time to engage Mel B, and will.i.am on these issues appropriately, and this image is removed quickly.

The New Statesman is running a "No Place For Children" campaign, with several of the largest Children's support agencies. The campaign is to help bring to an end, the UK's policy of detaining babies and children in detention centres.

Babies in particular, suffer from the lack of facilities and care in places such as Yarl's Wood. Whilst the UK Government continues to claim that all detainees are detained appropriately (how come so many are then released back into the UK community then?) and that the highest standard of care is applied (including not feeding a hungry baby as they'd run out of prescription formula), the detainees themselves tell a different story. As do the visitors to the compounds.
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The New Statesman has been running the campaign for several weeks, and has built up a database of reports and articles, some of them written by the detained children themselves. It's a powerful and moving set of testimonies, and worthy of your time.

They've also included visitor testimony, including a filmed segment of my own report on visiting Janipher Maseko, separated for over two weeks from her two week old son, who was exclusively breastfeeding.

They have also opened an online petition so you can add your name to this call, to stop locking up babies, infants and children in compounds. You need to have a UK postcode to sign..

Such efforts are worth while. The pressure brought to bear on the UK Government on their appalling human rights treatment of detained children, has resulted in them finally 'signing' detained children in the full human rights package that they had previously been excluded from.

The Black Women's Rape Action Project, continues to be a mainstay of support for all the mothers and children locked up in the detention centres. They work as volunteers, and scrape by on whatever funding they can raise. If you want to help the children in places like Yarl's Wood in a more practical way, send BWRAP a fiver after you sign the petition. You'll be helping to keep their phone bill paid, so they can call back the mothers in Yarl's Wood who need help there and then. You can 

You can also spread the word: this petition needs signing! :-)

".....baby bottles are impossible to clean for women who are living in poverty. They are often distributed by well meaning humanitarian aid agencies who do not realise that doing so can lead mothers to doubt their ability to adequately nourish their babies by breastfeeding alone.
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For your information I have attached a photograph of a bottle given to me by a mother who was affected by Cyclone Nargis. She mistakenly believed that because she was not eating as much as she had before the cyclone, her 2 month old baby would need to be fed milk from a bottle.

She did not realise that her metabolism would prioritise producing milk for her baby so that even if she became quite malnourished her baby would still grow well on her milk. She did not realise that feeding her baby milk would deprive him of many of antibodies her body was making in response to the poor sanitary conditions in which they both lived and she did not realise that the milk she was feeding him was contaminated and could cause his kidneys to fail. She did not realise that the bottle (and the milk inside) had in all likelihood caused her baby’s bronchitis. She had been using it to feed her baby only 24-36 hours before this photo was taken. The white flecks on the inside of the bottle and on the outside of the teat are maggots.
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There is good evidence that inappropriate infant feeding is responsible for 13% of infant deaths the world over. That is more than are caused by poor sanitation, dirty water or mosquito borne illness. So when I see a bottle being used to promote the Millennium Development Goals, I feel a deep sense of irony and some sadness. Would you consider contacting OXFAM International and perhaps whitebandaction and asking them to reshoot MelB’s spot without the bottle – and perhaps to include some information in the follow-up campaign on the importance of breastfeeding to the achievement of MDGs 1, 4 and 5?"

... don't let the money, or the protest, get lost.

Do two other things at the same time. Set up a new sub for the money, to an organisation that will take your money, help hungry babies, and not promote bottle feeding (unwittingly or otherwise).

Write to Oxfam and make it clear why you have cancelled your sub.

These people could do with your money, and they won't promote bottle feeding:

Baby Milk Action

Save The Children

War On Want

Apart from being really funny in places.. isn't it really good that finally, breastfeeding is normal enough just to be another thing to use in a stand up routine? :-)

It was sent out earlier today, to several concerned parties who have been working hard to protect children in Yarl's Wood, many who have been supporting Baby C and her family directly. It's apparently Quite A Big Deal, for a junior Minister to send out letters to MPs that aren't... ahem ... factually accurate. There, and you thought I wasn't capable of tact, didn't you?

Believe me, in terms of the meeting that did take place at Yarl's Wood, you have no idea how tactful I can be. Nor how much I can keep my big mouth shut about things.

You should read the letter....

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It's come to my attention that on September 30th, a letter was sent out by Meg Hillier, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, at the Home Office. The letter was sent to several MPs, who had enquired on behalf of their constituents, about the treatment on Baby C in Yarl's Wood, in June 2008. Namely, that a prescription formula milk for Baby C had been allowed to run out, and the baby had been left unfed for over 18 hours.

In this letter, Meg Hillier assures MPs that Brian Pollett and Jeremy Oppenheim were reviewing this case personally. She states that a meeting had been set up with Mrs Alison Blenkinsop, and other concerned parties, with Brian Pollett and Jeremy Oppenheim:

"In addition, Brian Pollett and Jeremy Oppenheim have also arranged to meet with Mrs Blenkinsop and other concerned parties to discuss this issue and seek an appropriate way forward. I am confident that any recommendations resulting from these measures will be fully considered and, where appropriate, implemented."

I have to inform you that this is factually incorrect.

Neither Jeremy Oppenheim, nor his office, has had any contact with Mrs Blenkinsop, and no such meeting is planned. Brian Pollett has responded personally to Mrs Blenkinsop, in the past, and a meeting with his staff, Mrs Blenkinsop and myself, took place some time ago: Brian Pollett was not present. There simply isn't any meeting, that we are aware of, with Brian Pollett, Jeremy Oppenheim and Mrs Blenkinsop.

On 15th September, two weeks prior to this letter going out to MPs, Mrs Blenkinsop and myself did attend a meeting at Yarl's Wood. Present were UK Border Agency staff, considerably junior to Mr Pollett and Mr Oppenheim, and Serco staff. The meeting was not fruitful, and all present refused to allow me permission to name those in attendance, or to agree on any quote that could be taken from the meeting.

In fact, at the start of the meeting, a Serco staff member directly addressed the Border Agency person chairing the meeting, and apparently jokingly said something like "Be careful what you say to her, she'll put it on the internet."

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I did mention during the meeting that Transparency and Accountability were key tenets of our current Government, but those points did not appear to be taken on board.

Of the meeting, I can only report the following, but alas, have no quotes approved by UK Border Agency upon them:

1) UK Border Agency accepted that there had been an 'issue' and that the formula should have been brought in on time. They declined to name this 'issue', not agreeing to it being called a 'failing', a 'communication breakdown' or otherwise. They assured us this administrative 'issue' would not arise again. When pushed, the chair asked us to write to him, with wording, to see what he would approve. I've not yet had a chance to do this.

2) UK Border Agency refused to accept there was any problem with the standard of Baby C's care, whatsoever, once the formula had run out. There was simply no leeway on this, and they refused point blank to accept that there was anything wrong with the baby going hungry for this amount of time. Serco asked that we consider the time Baby C was without formula to be 15 hours, not 18, in respect to her being fed as the formula ran out. We agreed to this, as it made little difference to the facts - that the baby was left unfed for so long. Mrs Blenkinsop made the point several times, that it was simply unacceptable for a baby to be left unfed for this amount of time, and UK Border Agency refused to accept this was not an appropriate standard of care. They directed us to the GP who had advised oral hydration sachets on the phone. Mrs Blenkinsop pointed out a doctor's advice on the phone was only as good as the information given to them, and that Yarl's Wood had the care of this baby. These points were consistently denied, and absolutely no admission that the baby had suffered from being hungry for so long, was conceded. If we wished to take this further, the mother must formally complain to Serco about the Dr's advice, and that was an end to it.

Therefore, I have to refer back to Meg Hillier's words in her letter, "I am confident that any recommendations resulting from these measures will be fully considered and, where appropriate, implemented." and inform you that, unfortunately, I'm not aware of any such process taking place. As UK Border Agency made it clear that there was no problem with Baby C being 'cared for' in this manner, nothing is being considered with a view to implementation. Not from our meeting, at least.

On that, there is only one other point in the meeting that I am free to discuss. When I had alerted Brian Pollett, by email, the evening that the baby was not being fed, and urged him to intervene immediately, I had also asked him to get an answer as to why a previous letter of mine to Yarl's Wood, had never been answered.

In April 2008, I had been supporting a mother being denied lactation support for her breastfeeding baby at Yarl's Wood, and had been told by the head of healthcare, to put it in writing. I had sent in an extremely detailed letter asking for information on several aspects of infant feeding and breastfeeding support at Yarl's Wood.

I had never received a reply, despite cc'ing the letter to a considerable amount of UK Border Agency staff, and other interested parties.

I received a letter shortly after, from Gill Foley, at UK Border Agency, informing me in no uncertain terms that I had been answered fully. She even supplied the approximate dates of emails and letters that had been sent to me. I asked for copies.

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At the meeting on the 15th, Serco apologised to me, as no such letters, or evidence of them, could be found. There was no explanation for this, and none to be found. When pushed to find a way to describe how a contractor had assured a Government department that legitimate letters of concern had been answered, when no record of such could be found... UK Border Agency refused to agree on how to describe it. "Lies", "misinformation" and "communication breakdown" were all negated by UK Border Agency.

When, as the injured party, I pushed that I felt I had a right to a reasonable explanation, I was told that the member of staff concerned was no longer in their employ and there was therefore nothing more to be said.

It is of note that I have not received an apology from UK Border Agency.

In light of the subsequent letter from the Home Office, detailing the non-existing meeting to be held to discuss the issues on Baby C, I feel it pertinent to raise this prior situation, illuminating UK Border Agency's track record on correspondence on such matters.

For my own part, I will be blogging later on today, to advise all constituents who had previously complained to their MPs, to contact them with this letter, and to alert them to the factual inaccuracies in Meg Hillier's letter.

Mrs Blenkinsop can be contacted independently via her website: http://www.linkable.biz/

Yours

Morgan Gallagher

http://www.nursingmatters.org.uk/

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It's only the Mums that continue to fight on this one, I sometimes feel. I found out about this letter from a Mum on MumsNet, and then asked around to find lots of Mums-who-complained-to-their-MPs had been sent it. My MP hadn't sent it to me. edit: Well, who'hav'thunk. My MP, of all people, as Yarl's Wood is in his constituency, hadn't had a copy of the letter sent to him! Ho hum.

Am I surprised? No, not any more. Am I shocked? No. Not feeding a baby is what shocked me. Defending those actions, no matter what... that's not shocking, that's obscene.

If you have complained to your MP before hand, please get in touch with them asap, even if you haven't had a response from this about this letter - and let them know. As I said, it's apparently Quite A Big Deal for a letter like this to go out. If you haven't complained to your MP yet, maybe now if the time to do so. Put your .

If you read the original letter from Meg Hillier, you'll find comments about things being published on the internet. This has happened several times - some MPs have even said in their responses to Mums, that there is only a fuss as it's on the internet. As if being in a network, where human beings - tax payers and voters - share knowledge and information on what our Government is doing, in our name, is A Bad Thing?

Thanks heavens for the internet!!!!

And Mums.

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Whereby I can tell you, finally, and thankfully, that the Home Office have seen sense and apologised over the Baby C farrago.
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Or to be precise, Jeremy Oppenheim, the outgoing Children's Champion to the Home Office, has stated that what happened with Baby C wasn't acceptable. In his own words...
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Your first concern is that no infant should be deprived of food for 14 hours and particularly not while in an Immigration Removal Centre. Further you believe that more could and should have been done to ensure that the necessary formula did not run out and more effort should have been made to obtain new supplies promptly when it did. I can confirm in writing as I did at our meeting that I agree with you on all of these points.
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If that sounds a little sticky, and not-quite-an-apology, I'd advise you to go read the full text of his letter. It's a long and detailed response, taking time and effort to meticulously document the objections that myself and Alison Blenkinsop have raised with the Home Office, time and again, since this debacle erupted. It also documents the struggle everyone has undertaken in getting this issue dealt with, and it acknowledges the effort that was made by all of us. and by all of us, I mean you to, as the contacting and re-contacting of MPs over this, was clearly of real importance in getting this result.
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Since the event occurred you have spent considerable time writing to and telephoning the agency about your concerns. You did not receive a response that satisfied you. You approached Members of Parliament who wrote on your behalf. The responses they received did not reassure you. You met Yarls Wood staff together with Morgan Gallagher. At that meeting you thought that the staff minimised your concerns regarding the lack of necessary food for the infant. They therefore could not reassure you that a similar incident would not occur again. Following this meeting there were further delays before your meeting with me.
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The letter is addressed to Alison Blenkinsop, and I'll explain a little about that. This sequence is important, if you want to get an understanding of how, and why, these things both happen with UK Gov, and aren't then actioned upon. So pay attention. :-) The devil is in the detail...
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When both Alison and I became aware that the Home Office had been sending letters out to MPs, reassuring them that the situation was under control, and naming Alison personally, in her role as a member of the Lactation Consultants of Great Britain.. and stating she and Brian Pollett and Jeremy Oppenheim were to have a meeting.. a meeting that had never been arranged, or spoken about... she contacted Meg Hillier at the Home Office, and asked for an explanation. Why was her name in this letter sent to MPs, and why were MPs being informed of a meeting that didn't exist?
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Meg Hillier never responded. Jeremy Oppenheim's office, did, several days later. Only to Alison, not to myself. It was a request for a meeting. By this time, we'd discovered that two versions of the "everything is under control" letter had been going out to MPs, from two different people at the Home Office. The text had been copied and pasted from one letter to the other. And had been sent out over a span of several weeks, to different MPs who had written requesting an answer to the issue of Baby C going unfed.
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Alison responded to this request, by demanding that it was clear upfront, what was going to be discussed. After the horrendous meeting at Yarl's Wood we'd both attended in early September (that we were forbidden from quoting) neither she, nor I, were prepared to attend more of the same, without reassurances.
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Answer came there none.
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Several days passed. Alison again contacted Meg Hillier's office, and requested clarification.
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Answer came there none.
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Last week, she got a phone call from Jeremy Oppenheim, who is leaving office to take up a new role in the Government, stating he was in her area and could she attend a meeting that afternoon? Alison agreed, and off she went.
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I wasn't at the meeting, but Alison felt it went very well, and fed back elements to me, and stated that Jeremy Oppenheim had promised the same in writing. Which duly arrived on Friday, and is the letter above.
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So if the letter looks ungainly, and super step-by-step detailed, I'd reassure you that it is in order to reflect the torturous path we've taken, to get to this point.
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Importantly, it acknowledges what we've all been so incensed about. Not so much the dire mistakes that led to the baby going hungry, but to the complete and utter refusal by the Home Office, that there was anything wrong with this. And their complete refusal to listen to all of us, when we said time and again, that this wasn't acceptable. Oppenheim is extremely clear on this:
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You are also concerned that our responses to you and your colleagues were unnecessarily delayed and defensive. It would have been a relief to you and your colleague if you had known the steps that the agency was actually taking in response to this incident. You also believe that an earlier meeting with a sufficiently senior member of the Agency would have ensured that the replies to the letters sent on your behalf by Members of Parliament were more helpful. Again I can confirm as I said at our meeting that delays should not have occurred and that the Agency needs to be more welcoming of well meant criticism from professionals concerned for the welfare of children. I apologise on behalf of the Agency for the delay and personally for the fact that I did not meet with you much earlier.
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That earlier meeting was a complete stonewall. I never reported it, as it was pointless. No one had agreed to my even mentioning who was present, and no single quote was ever agreed. I was personally attacked, several times, and accused of breaches of confidence with mothers and babies I have supported. Thankfully, I have always obtained signed consent forms for every aspect of support and publicity we give via Nursing Matters and I was able to refute those allegations. Further, we are still in contact with every mother and baby we have ever helped and can ask them to testify to this. We continue to support most of them to this day.

There were 2 of us - myself and Alison, and 7 senior managers from the Home Office and Serco. Their tone was one of complete defensiveness; there was nothing to answer for apart from a delay in getting in the formula. It is of note that Oppenheim has both accepted, and apologised for this, and stated very clearly that the Home Office needs to be more welcoming of well meant criticism from professionals concerned for the welfare of children. I suspect this is a powerful message, in the world of UK politics, especially within the Home Office. Those of you who have continued to engage with your own MPs over this matter, might want to consider sending them a note, containing this quote from Oppenheim, and the URL for the full letter.
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Especially if you got a "Quite all right dear, there's nothing to worry about, I'm sure it's all as it should be." response from your MP. Those MPs need to hear these words far more than the ones who responded "I'm shocked and will be following this up."
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Because, intrinsically, those "there there dearie, there's no problem" MPs are part of this problem.
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Part of the complacency that allowed the senior Home Office managers in that meeting in September, to sit and stonewall us, and accuse us of wrongdoing, whilst they carried on maintaining it was perfectly acceptable not to feed a three month old baby.
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Part of the complacency that allows senior civil servants and contractors for the Government, to act completely outrageously (3rd paragraph).
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So where does this letter leave us? Well, it does stop short of a complete apology to Baby C and her mother. As such.. well, this letter isn't designed for that. I do know Alison did request that a letter of apology should be sent direct to the family, and I do have some confidence this will happen. I'll update at the bottom of this post, if, and when, it does.
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Aside from that, I am very happy with this letter. I am very happy with the acknowledgement of the incident, that the Children's Champion at the Home Office agrees with our complaints that it should never have been allowed to happen, and that the delays and refusing to listen should not have occurred. The whole stitch in time tone sits well with me. Brian Pollett was informed by me, personally in email, that evening, before Baby C ever got hungry, about what had happened. Senior management at Serco have stated that they knew about the situation within minutes of my first phone call to Yarl's Wood, so they did have time to act before Baby C became distressed. Her mother, of course, was already in a state of extreme anxiety. If they'd acted then, and just gone to Bedford Hospital, or sent baby there with her Mum, she'd never have gone hungry in the first place.

Likewise, if they'd just accepted they got it wrong after they didn't feed her, the past four months of struggle could have been avoided. So there was a stitch missed, that caused a huge tear in the public's confidence in the care of babies in detention. This letter does lay this out, and address that, competently and clearly.
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However.
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Well... you know.. much as I like this letter. Most of that is just sheer relief that someone is listening. I'm totally on board with this letter, and the meeting that took place. I feel it is an honourable letter, and one that should be applauded. Well Done! round of applause
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However.
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Whilst, in itself, it's a good letter... well, there's a lot still missing in this situation, isn't there? Oppenehim says that he should have been in touch earlier... why wasn't he? We've made a huge fuss over this affair, we mothers. We've blogged, written to MPs, complained, passed on details to journalists and had major television news coverage of the incident. His office, which I can't find a URL for, or any meaningful link to, has never responded. I've been supporting mothers and babies in Yarl's Wood for over eighteen months, and have never had any sense or suggestion from anyone that the pathway of progress led to the door of the Children's Champion Office. It was not mentioned at the meeting in Yarl's Wood. I've emailed literally dozens of officials and MPs and civil servants over alleged mistreatment, and actual mistreatment, of babies and children in the detention system, and contact with this office has never occurred. If you engine search, you get a plethora of hits on documents, debates, meetings and fervent activity. But no contact point, no explaining what this office does, how it can be approached, and how it deals with complaints about children's treatment in the detention system.

There doesn't appear to be a direct, transparent and accountable procedure set up, for this office, that enables individuals to contact them directly? No sense of what it does and how it acts?
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One wonders if this office only became aware of the situation after MPs had been misinformed of their involvement?
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One wonder where this office has been over the past few years as stories of the systemic mistreatment of children detained in Yarl's Wood have become more and more public?

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not questioning Mr Oppenheim's, or his office's integrity. I have never met him, know nothing of his work, but for what I've encountered in the past few days. And I am greatly impressed by that contact, and am saying so up front. What I am questioning, is the process by which we've ended up here. A huge Government funded and directed operation, working from within the Home Office, that is locking up babies and children in secure units for months at a time, and refusing to accept that not feeding a baby was A Big Deal. That's what I'm questioning here.

And part of that questioning, is centred upon the letter. Oppenheim makes the following statement:

Which sounds really good, doesn't it? I'm sure some of you reading it, nodded your head and thought "Good, that will help." Well, I have to report... Bedfordshire Social Services have had an office in Yarl's Wood for months, if not years. There is a Social Services worker assigned there. And that social worker office was contacted, directly, the day Baby C was going hungry. And the social worker who answered the phone, initially went "Oh that's terrible, I'll go see." and returned with "There is no problem, thank you for your concern."

So comments about liaising with Social Workers to ensure protection... do not ring true. How can a single social worker, stand against the might of the Home Office senior managers based in Yarl's Wood? The social work department were part of the stonewall and silence on the baby going hungry. They were complicit in not seeing this as a big deal, as that's what they'd been told by senior civil servants and managers in situ.

Further, it's not as if we haven't been here before. Reports on babies and children suffering harm in Yarl's Wood have been made public for years. The Home Office have always blamed such incidents on the contract providers, and have changed them to new contractors when contracts are due for renewal. They then state it was a mistake and it 'won't happen again'. Always, in these stories, is a sense that the Home Office are refusing to take responsibility for the problems - it's not their fault...

In 2005, Baby D was released from detention in Yarl's Wood suffering from rickets and anemia. The mother engaged a lawyer, who sued on behalf of the baby, on the basis of unlawful detention and that the lack of care of the baby, was a breach of the baby's human rights. The Home Office stated that it wasn't reasonable to expect them to be held responsible for the baby developing rickets and anemia, as it was the responsibility of the contractor providing medical care to ensure the health of detainees. The judge disagreed:

Case No: CO/9745/2005 THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE WYN WILLIAMS : [2007] EWHC 1654

The Defendant in this case was the Secretary of State for the Home Department. The Home Office.

So the ruling is clear - that the medical care of detainees is the responsibility of the UK Government, who detain the babies, and employs and supervises the private company who provides medical care in the compounds.

The contractors change. The problems continue. Who is responsible for that?

If you look at the report of Yarl's Wood staff acting illegally this past week, you'll find the same argument:

How can a contractor - Serco in recent times, but others have held this dubious 'honour' in past years - be culpable in an institution that is overseen by the Home Office? Surely the Home Office are the ones in charge? They write the contract? They pay the contractors? Senior managers and civil servants for the Home Office, sit in Yarl's Wood itself, running it! They're not on a phone line in London - they have their offices in Yarl's Wood, side by side with the 'contractor's management.

But they aren't reponsible?

Hmmm... I'll leave you to make your mind up on that.

But before I go... an explanantion for those of you who might be a bit confused about my comments on the role of 'Children's Champion'.

Because I suspect some of you read the statement "Children's Champion for the Home Office" and think "Oh, that's the Children's Commisioner, he's spoken out about Yarl's Wood and children before." Yes, he has - but these are two different roles, and two different people.

Professor Sir Al Aynsley-Green, is Children's Commssioner for England. It's an independent post, and he and his office are charged with looking into, and reporting upon, the lives of children in England. There are other Children's Commisioners around the UK.

Jeremy Oppenheim has just left post, as Children's Champion within the Home Office itself. As I said, I can't find any URLs that explain this position clearly - if you do, let me know. :-)

Al Aynsley-Green's department have already reported on the treatment of detained babies and children. He's about to publish a new report, sometime this month. It will be interesting to see if the defence outlined above... that a contractor is culpable.. reappears in its wake.

The Home Office. Paid for by you. Its leaders voted for, by you. Acting in your name.

At last someone at the Home Office, has been listening. So, once again, great news that Oppenheim has written this letter and broken through this stonewalling. :-) Gold Star on the report card for Jeremy.

However, could do better scrawled across the Home Office report card... especially the Home Office managers in Yarl's Wood itself. I suspect Serco's report card will soon show they've been expelled... or at very least are up in front of the headmaster for a severe ticking off. (After all, rumours abound that the Serco employed head of medical services at Yarl's Wood, when Baby C went hungry, has subsequently been sacked.)

And a heads up to the rest of you. When this new report from the Children's Commissioner is published... keep you eye out for comments that any problems are the responsibility of the 'contractor', Serco. I guarentee you'll see them!

But I'll end this post on a happy note! Yaaaay! Yaaay for mothers! Yaaay for MPs who wouldn't sit back and accept the first response! Yaaay for fighting back! Yaaay for letter writing and constituents taking the lead!

Yaaay us! :-)