headermask image

header image

Breastfeed your baby

Hubb shared with me a disturbing story yesterday after work.

One of his staff’s relative’s child was diagnosed with late stage leukemia. The girl is 13 years and the doctor says she only has 2 more months to live.

One of the girl’s relative knows a German doctor who specializes in treating leukemia. Coincidentally, the doctor was making a trip to Malaysia to treat one of the royal family members. They managed to get an appointment for the doctor to meet the girl.

The doctor examined the girl for 3 hours and at the end of the examination had the following conversation with the girl’s mother

Dr: Did you breastfeed your child?
Girl’s mother: Yes
Dr: How long?
Girl’s mother: A few weeks, less than a month
Dr: You should not feel so sad over your girl’s situation. It is possibly your fault that she has cancer. If you had done your job as her mother and bf her, she may not be in this situation.

The Dr later explained that he had been doing a study on the relation between young children with cancer and breastfeeding. He found that almost all the children who had cancer were all bf less than 8 months by their mother. He does not have conclusive evidence to link the 2, and thus he never publishes any results yet. But he is convinced that breast milk helped to protect the children.

It is too late to save the girl, and I felt tears well up in my eyes when I heard the story.

It is a brutal revelation to the mother and she regretted deeply that she did not bf her child. Some more, she was a SAHM. *sigh*….

If you liked my post, feel free to subscribe to my rss feeds

Money Making Options

Post meta

This entry was written by Shooi and posted on Friday, September 21, 2007 at and filed under Breastfeeding. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment(Latest is displayed first) or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

Share with others

Post Breastfeed your baby to digg. Post Breastfeed your baby to Reddit add to stumbleupon Google Bookmark myweb bookmark on del.cio.us newsvine Tailrank magnolia Furl co.mments shadows simpy blinklist

10 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

  1. I agree with the Moms here that the doctor is insensitive, esp at a time like this! I can imagine she’s already asking herself if she could have done anything different to prevent this, that doctor saying something like that is just plain cruel.

    1. KittyCat on October 24th, 2007 at

  2. i also feel the Dr is very insensitive, anyway i do think breastfeeding is very important. WX get sick very frequent now and some of my friends are giving comment that bf does not help much. I personaly think that we might not see an difference now but it will be different when they grow up

    2. JM on October 4th, 2007 at

  3. how can the doctor blame the mother like that? so not professional one. the mother already feel sad and now even the doc came to blame her for that.

    3. whoisbaby on September 27th, 2007 at

  4. Asians prefer people to prettify their words when the message is conveyed. Even if the truth hurts, they like it said nicely. A straight-to-the-point answer like what the German doctor used is often construed as insensitive.
    But thanks for the sharing.

    4. Giddy Tiger on September 25th, 2007 at

  5. does that mean non-breastfeed children are more likely to get leukemia? what the doc said is disturbing!

    5. Mommy to Chumsy on September 23rd, 2007 at

  6. How could the doc say like that, so irresponsible! :sad:

    6. beckysmum on September 22nd, 2007 at

  7. First of all, that German doc is very unprofessional and irresponsible. How can he mention such a statement to the mom especially when he has yet to come to conclusion? Usually all med professionals who do researches will need to submit their reports to the national med association. That report will be analyze by other med professionals. Tsk! I will not even listen to this doctor unless it has been proven (as in all medical docs agree with that report) that lack of b/f will not protect a child from leukemia. I am also an advocate for b/f but I find what this doc said very disturbing.

    Shooi: I know what u mean. I also find what the German dr said to the mother disturbing and insensitive. This is the first time that i have heard of such thing also. Anyway, the girl’s family has not given up hope and continue to seek help for their daughter.

    7. Vien on September 22nd, 2007 at

  8. Shooi, I don’t know if I can help, my father in law died due to Leukimia and the doctor can help prolongd his life by another 3 years. Can you give me your email addres I can emial you the tel, she work in P.J only Sat and sunday . Give it a try, please contact me ASAP.

    Shooi: Thanks. Already sent u an email

    8. Sammi on September 21st, 2007 at

  9. oh……Shooi, thanks for the info. Din knw bf can help so much although i only know about the nutrition part :)

    Shooi: I also don’t know. I was surprised to learn abt this as well.

    9. chinnee on September 21st, 2007 at

  10. wei dun like that, i also bf my son for 6 weeks only. Not because i dun want wor..he dun want.

    Shooi: Sorry, sorry… Baby don’t want or mother cannot bf is one problem. Mother don’t want to bf is another story. I want to share this story so that mothers will make an effort to bf their bb.

    10. sasha on September 21st, 2007 at

Post a Comment

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*