A new mother named Jillian Johnson’s healthy newborn son was just 19 days old when she held him in her arms as he took her last breath. According to the mother, her newborn son Landon passed away due to accidental starvation because of Pressure to breastfeed.
He could still be alive
In a blog post the new mother wrote for a non-profit organization called Fed Is Best, Jillian Johnson wrote about how she wished she could go back in time. She admitted that if she had just given him one bottle of formula he wouldn’t have passed away.
Fed Is Best is the name of a non-profit organization that advocates for safe breastfeeding.
The organization supports supplementing with formulate when it is necessary or fully formula feeding for mothers who want to or need to. This non-profit organization was started in response to the number of stories new mothers have shared about accidentally starving their newborns as a result of pressure to breastfeed.
Jillian Johnson milk supply was not enough
During the first few days of Landon’s life, Jillian’s mile supply was not adequate enough to properly feed him. This ultimate resulted in the baby starving to death just a few weeks later. Johnson never dreamed that the pressure to breastfeed after hearing “breast is best” all of the time would result in her son starving to death.
Jillian Johnson has made the decision to share her story with the hopes that it will educate other new mothers.
She wants to do her part to make sure no other new mothers have to go through what she is going through. While Jillian cannot go back in time and change what has happened, she can share her story to try to prevent it from happening to another new mother.
How does this happen?
The unfortunate truth is new mothers are encouraged that “breast is best” and exclusively breastfeeding is the healthiest choice to make for a baby.
However, not every woman’s body is capable of providing a newborn with the number of calories and hydration they need during the first few days of life in order to survive. For medical reasons, some women just aren’t capable of exclusively breastfeeding.
While breastmilk is extremely beneficial to newborns and may be more natural than formula, a baby getting enough to eat is much more important than whether the newborn consumes formula or breastmilk.
