OPEN LETTER TO FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA
ON THE HIGH RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IMPAIRED BREASTFEEDING BONDING AND INFANT MORTALITY NOT ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE SURGEON GENERAL?S CALL TO ACTON TO SUPPORT BREASTFEEDING 2011; CALLS FOR WEANING AGE OF EVERY INFANT/ CHILD BE RECORDED AND PUBLISHED AS PART OF THE IMMUNOLOGICAL RECORD BY THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR HEALTH STATISTICS, CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION; AND ESTABLISH BY LAW THE GENDER EQUALITY OF REPRESENTATION IN THE CONGRESS.
The excess health risks associated with not breastfeeding are well known
and acknowledged by The Surgeon General?s Call to Acton to Support Breastfeeding 2011 but the psychosocial effects are little mentioned except to note the enhanced feeling of bonding by breastfeeding with no mention of its powerful relationship to infant mortality (p.3). Child Obesity, not mentioned, is a lesser health risk than infant/child mortality.
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/topics/breastfeeding/calltoactiontosupportbreastfeeding.pdf
http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/IM_BF_Homicide_Stats_Update_2010.html
The 2010 AAP Policy Statement: Child Fatality Review. Pediatrics 2010; 126; 592-596
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/126/3/592.pdf states:
The preventable death of a child is an unparalleled tragedy for a family. Similarly, a nation?s ability to reduce child mortality rates is a measure of that society’s overall well being, and failure to address preventable causes of child mortality is a national tragedy. Each year in the United States, more than 17 000 infants and children die from injury, which remains the leading cause of child mortality in the United States.1 Add to this the number of preventable noninjury deaths, including many deaths related to prematurity, and it becomes clear that a majority of American child deaths are preventable.
Introduction
This author has initiated a dialogue on this AAP Policy Statement that can be found In Pediatrics Online. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/eletters/126/3/592
Breastfeeding Mothers are rarely violent toward their nursing infants and children which points to a solution for preventing the high infant mortality rate and its relationship to homicide.
http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/IM_BF_Homicide_Stats.pdf
This writer wrote DHHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on 27 January 2011, which outlined these facts with additional supporting evidence but have received no acknowledgement of this and other communications.
http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/Lt_Sebelius_DHHS_1.27.11.pdf
Additional Commentary and Letter of 22 February 2011 to First Lady Obama HERE.