Sleeping With The Enemy?

I have only been working as a maternity nurse for a few short weeks. But, I've already had to make choices about not compromising who I am and what I believe.

This week there was a representative from Mead-Johnson doing an in-service on our unit. We were all "Strongly encouraged" to attend the in-service. I did not have a problem, ethically, with attending the in-service, per se, as there is a certain amount of knowledge about artificial baby milk that nurses need to know in order to help the mothers who use this method of feeding for their babies. However, I did have a problem accepting lunch from the representative. She ordered a large Chinese lunch for all of the nurses on the unit that day. While I didn't want to make waves during my first few weeks on the job, I didn't want to compromise who I was and my strong beliefs in order to eat a free lunch.

Most of what she said was benign. She said the required "breast is best" line. But, there were innuendos that I was uncomfortable with, and I called her on them. She was touting the benefits of enfamil highlighting the new added DHA that improves infant's vision (compared to previous versions of enfamil and other non-Mead-Johnson formulas). Then, she started implying that women who have poor diets may be lacking in the needed DHA that is in enfamil.

There was no way I was going to let that go by....first few weeks or not. Because she was implying this and not directly stating it, I asked her flat out, "Are you implying that women who use enfamil are providing better nutrition than those who have poor diets and are breastfeeding?"

She quickly backed down and agreed with me that a woman would need to be severely malnourished in order to supply a poorer nutrition than formula.

The nerve. Eat an Egg roll and be snowed. Nope, don't think so!