World’s Largest Breast Milk Sharing Network Spreads Across Facebook: "Eats On Feets" Goes Global

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE :

World’s Largest Breast Milk Sharing Network Spreads Across Facebook: "Eats On
Feets" Goes Global

Within a matter of days, women around the world have mobilized on the social
networking site Facebook to organize an international, woman-to-woman milk
sharing network. Human milk is for human babies, and formula-feeding is
associated with risks to both the mother and infant. Women today are aware of
this fact and are taking their life-sustaining power back into their own hands
— they are now converging on Facebook to freely share their breastmilk with one
another.

Montreal, Canada, November 7, 2010 - The announcement last month from internet health guru, Dr. Joseph Mercola, of his plans to launch his own brand of
powdered infant formula onto the US market, has spawned the Eats On Feets
GLOBAL breastmilk sharing network. In retaliation against yet another needless
and harmful artificial breastmilk substitute to hit the market, mothers on
Facebook from around the world have come together to take a stand for infant
health. They have now established the world’s largest human milk sharing
network, an initiative spearheaded by Canadian lactating mother and passionate
breastfeeding activist, Emma Kwasnica.

The "Eats On Feets" name is the brainchild of Phoenix, AZ midwife, Shell
Walker. A mother to young children in the ’90s, Walker and her friends had this
thought: "Hey, why don’t we just become wet-nurses? Instead of ’Meals on
Wheels’, we can call our business ’Eats On Feets’." Walker took this idea and
made it a reality in July, 2010, when she created a Facebook profile page under
the same name, and began a free, community-based breastmilk sharing network for mothers in Phoenix. She has since been successful at matching up local women
who have an excess, or are in need of, human breastmilk.

Meanwhile, Kwasnica has also been using her personal profile page and her large
network of international birth and breastfeeding activists on Facebook, in
order to match up human milk donors and recipients around the world. One such
story involves a fellow Canadian friend, living in Bandung, Indonesia; the
school teacher and single father to a newborn son wondered if he could source
human milk for his baby instead of feeding his son a powdered breastmilk
substitute. Aware of his situation, Kwasnica put the call out to her vast
network via a simple status update on Facebook, and a breastfeeding peer
counselor in a neighbouring city in Indonesia responded. A string of lactating
women on the ground was assembled to provide human milk locally for the infant
boy. Now three months old, this baby has never tasted anything other than human
milk.

The announcement of Dr. Mercola’s plans to market formula was the final
catalyst that spurred Emma Kwasnica on to convene with Shell Walker and launch
Eats On Feets GLOBAL. Regarding the inception of this initiative, she states:
"Shell Walker is a friend and the midwife in Phoenix, AZ who came up with the
name ’Eats On Feets’. She graciously allowed me to use her catchy name in order
to launch the global initiative: a woman-to-woman, grassroots milk sharing
network here on Facebook. As for Dr. Mercola, he should be injecting his
burgeoning wealth into breastfeeding support, not trying to make more money off
a product that is harmful to infants and their lifelong health."

With the help of nearly 200 women online from the global mothering Facebook
community, the initiative has taken off. Donor and recipient milk matches are
being made right now all over the world on the pages of Facebook. There are now
87 Eats On Feets chapter pages spanning 18 countries (a quick Facebook search
for "Eats On Feets" yields dozens of results). This movement is proof that
Facebook can, indeed, be used for the good of humanity. By encouraging the
biologically normal way of feeding babies, and reviving an age-old practice of
human milk sharing, it is clear that social networking has the power to
revolutionize infant health.

ABOUT Eats On Feets GLOBAL - The Eats On Feets GLOBAL network chapter pages on Facebook provide an online space to facilitate woman-to-woman milk sharing. We assert that women are capable of making informed choices and of sharing human milk with one another in a safe and ethical manner. Eats On Feets GLOBAL does NOT support the selling or corporatism of human breastmilk.

For a current list of all of the Eats On Feets chapter locations in operation
around the globe, or to find your local Eats On Feets Facebook chapter page,
please see this document at the following URL:
http://tinyurl.com/EatsOnFeetsGLOBAL

To listen to the radio show podcast (from October 30) where Emma Kwasnica
discusses the events that lead to the launch of Eats On Feets GLOBAL, and how
the ethics of Dr. Mercola were the catalyst for this initiative, visit:
http://kopn.org/archive and click on "Momma Rap".

Two links to Quebec newspapers, one in French (Le Devoir) and the other in English (the Gazette), who had published articles on this subject :
– http://www.ledevoir.com/societe/san...
– http://www.montrealgazette.com/heal...

Four links to Chapters (there are more than 100 now) :
– EoF France : http://www.facebook.com/EatsOnFeets...
– EoF South Africa : http://www.facebook.com/EatsOnFeets...
– EoF UK : http://www.facebook.com/EatsonFeetsUK
– EoF Quebec : http://www.facebook.com/EatsOnFeets...
...

CONTACT :
Emma Kwasnica
Eats On Feets GLOBAL
(514) 656 1560
Montreal, CANADA
http://www.facebook.com/emma.kwasnica
emma.kwasnica@gmail.com