Not So Healthy for Disaster Zones: Baby Formula

by Te-Ping Chen · 2010-01-20 07:36:00 UTC
Topics:

Amid this past week’s maelstrom of good intentions, hundreds of users on Twitter have been calling for donations of a product to Haiti that could prove fatal: baby formula.

“Anyone who can donate BABY FORMULA for babies in HAITI, urgently needed!” reads one item. “Alcohol, peroxide & baby formula most needed in #Haiti. Donate Suffolk County NY” reads another.

While not the most obvious concern when confronted with buildings that have been flattened, interrupted breastfeeding is actually one of the most urgent issues in disaster zones. In fact, ensuring that breast-feeding is continued ranks right up there with search and rescue for the World Health Organization’s five immediate priorities in Haiti.

For babies suddenly deprived of their mothers, increased risk of respiratory infections and diarrhea amid the rubble can be deadly. Tens of thousands of children have been orphaned in Haiti, many of them infants. So it's no surprise that plenty of well-meaning donors are taking up the call to send powdered baby formula to the disaster-stricken region.

But aid workers caution that because dry baby formula requires mixing with water, when air-lifted into an environment where access to clean water has been jeopardized, the product actually raises the risk of contamination. In years past, UNICEF has gone so far as to ask donors to please, please stop being so generous with their formula in disaster zones. The agency has found that after earthquakes, infants fed donated formula –- the beneficiaries of overseas generosity -- are two times more likely to experience diarrhea than normal.

There are still ways to help out, though -- by going to your local human milk bank. Founded in 2006, the International Breast Milk Project has donated hundreds of thousands of bottles of milk to countries across the developing world, and is currently partnering with the Human Milk Banking Association of North America to help mothers in the United States donate to Haiti.

If you don’t happen to be a currently lactating mother, you can still help spread the word. And don’t be dismayed by one less item that you can bring to the cause -- above all, what’s still needed to support Haiti relief efforts is, as Tracy Clark-Flory puts it in Salon, “Money, money, money.” That’s the message relief agencies are spreading, and it bears a repeat. Play it again, Sam.

Photo Credit: thesoftlanding

Te-Ping Chen Te-Ping Chen is a freelance writer and U.S. Truman Scholar whose writing has appeared in the Nation Magazine, the South China Morning Post magazine, Le Soir, and Slate.com.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Stay Tuned for London Conference on Afghanistan Next Week
NEXT STORY:
A letter from Bettina Siegel, "Pink Slime" petition creator

COMMENTS (1)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.