‘I don’t want another baby to suffer’ Mum furious at breastfeeding guide

After losing her son, Jillian Johnson has spent months campaigning for safer feeding guidelines for new mums. However the World Health Organisation has decided the issue is not a ‘top priority’, leaving the mum fuming.

A key recommendation of the 1989 World Health Organisation’s Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding is to ‘give infants no food or drink other than breast-milk, unless medically indicated.’

But this advice has the potential to lead to serious complications such as accidental starvation of babies due to dehydration, hyperbilirubinemia (jaundice) and hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar).

Tragically that is what happened to Jillian’s little boy Landon, who she exclusively breastfed, when he passed away at just three weeks of age.

Last week the WHO issued draft revised breastfeeding guidelines yet didn’t address this recommendation, leaving it to be part of the guidelines that define the standard of care for breastfeeding management in all healthcare facilities worldwide.

“I don't want another baby or family to suffer like our sweet Landon did,” Jillian, from California, tells Be.

Jillian thought she was doing everything right. She had read all the books and taken all the courses to prepare for the birth of her first child.

She was encouraged to exclusively breastfeed, but just three days into her son Landon's short life, paramedics were called to her California home and her precious baby boy was put on life support.

“I’m appalled by the lack of concern shown by the WHO on such an important issue,” she tells us.

“I shared the pain of losing my son by a senseless practice and they aren’t interested in preventing it from happening to other families.”

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Landon James was born via caesarean section on February 25, 2012, and went straight to breastfeeding, even though one lactation consultant noted that she may have trouble producing milk as she has been diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome and Landon was her first child.

Landon was always crying and nursing constantly, yet he was losing body weight quickly – over 10 per cent after just 26 hour. But As his weight loss was within a “normal” range, Jillian and Landon were discharged from hospital.

“So we took him home….not knowing that after less than 12 hours home with us, he would have gone into cardiac arrest caused by dehydration,” she wrote in a powerful blog post for the Fed is Best Foundation.

Jillian found Landon unresponsive, pulseless and blue after he fell asleep following a feed.

He was rushed to hospital and immediately taken to the neonatal intensive care unit where a devastated Jillian was told, “sure breast is best, but follow with the bottle. This way you know your baby has eaten enough.”

“If only I could go back in time,” she writes.

An MRI showed that Landon had suffered a brain injury caused by lack of oxygen due to dehydration, and his life support was turned off on March 15.

Five years on from Landon's tragic death, Jillian and husband Jarrod have become parents to two gorgeous girls and celebrate their son's birthday every year.

She has dedicated her time to educating parents on the importance of feeding your newborn - whether supplementing or breastfeeding.

“I'm pro-feeding. Plain and simple," she adds.

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