WHERE IS MELINDA GATES GOING WITH BREASTFEEDING?

I want to share the continued research that I'm doing into the Women Deliver Conference to discover what the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are planning for mothers and babies throughout the world and decide whether we should welcome this or organize against it.

Here is a YouTube video of a 13-minute excerpt of the 60 Minutes video interview of Melinda Gates in which they attribute high infant mortality to midwives using non-sterile instruments and say that they lay newborns on cold, dirt floors. Now, supposedly these rates have improved since they have taught the midwives to use sterile razor blades to cut the umbilical cord and they've taught them to wrap the newborn in a blanket, and infant mortality has gone down.

Now I want to ask you to look at some websites about Kangaroo Care, a practice of laying the naked newborn directly on the mother's bare chest, to see that this is the more advanced, enlightened way to stabilize a newborn, especially a low-birth-weight one. The mother's body keeps the baby warm, encourages breathing, and when the baby squirms and roots around, it will find the mother's nipple by itself within an hour or so, thus securing the best nutrition and "securing its safety in its mother's arms".

• Kangaroo Care - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_care
• Dr. Bergman - http://www.kangaroomothercare.com/drbergman.htm

What a difference between the Western-style medical approach of teaching "ignorant midwives" to keep the baby warm in a blanket, and the respectful, supportive approach of letting the baby have access to its Mom.

A personal note: I bottle-fed my first two babies, because I was told I had no milk (in fact, they gave me DES to dry up my milk. A nurse who had breast fed showed me techniques to "help" my baby nurse). I then went on to breast feed my other children and always passed along this knowledge to other mothers. I assumed that this was a cultural, woman-to-woman tradition. Imagine my surprise when I saw an 8 minute film a few months ago showing a brand-new newborn wriggle around on its mother's belly, crawling by fits and starts up until it "latched on" to the nipple.

I'm also enclosing the information so that you can order this 8 minute film to see this for yourself. Also, we hope to include a minute or two of this footage on the new page on my website, http://www.womenshealthinwomenshands.org/.

•breastfeeding - baby's choice - http://www.healthychildren.cc/skinlatchsuite.pdf

Carol Downer with the assistance of Aracely Hernandez