Abstract
I was recently honored to visit with another one of our ABM Founders, Dr. Larry Gartner. He is Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Chicago and a true leader in breastfeeding medicine. Larry is also a great role model, father, grandfather, husband, teacher, researcher, and more. [Figure 1] The recording of our chat will soon be available for viewing in full from the ABM website.
Lawrence Gartner, Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics and OB/GYN, The University of Chicago; One of Our ABM Founders.
I recently reflected on my own origins of interest in breastfeeding, and Dr. Gartner has a vivid memory of when he got hooked as well! Early in his training, he was rotating in outpatient pediatrics and evaluated a 2-month baby whose mother came from Germany. During his evaluation the baby became fussy, so the mom put the baby to the breast, and the baby immediately settled down. Larry had never seen a mother breastfeed her baby until that very moment! He also never had any education about breastfeeding and doesn’t recall the topic ever being mentioned.
Fast forward to research expertise—neonatal jaundice was Dr. Gartner’s focus. His own dear late wife, Carol, was Rh-negative, and this became a personal and professional interest for him. One day while working in New York, he was asked to see a baby who was very jaundiced but otherwise healthy. The only thing different about this baby was being breastfed. He recalls noting in the chart that perhaps the jaundice was related to breastfeeding, and he even saved a frozen sample of mother’s but then forgot about it! A year later his mentor found the frozen milk and asked if Dr. Gartner could get more of that mother’s breast milk. Dutiful chief resident that he was, he found the mother through her household address; the baby was now 1 year old, no longer breastfeeding, and doing very well. So began his journey into the world of breastfeeding, as it related to neonatal jaundice with his first publication in 1973. 1
With this specific interest, Dr. Gartner was sought after by La Leche League to discuss his work on jaundice and breastfeeding and through this connection, learned even more about breastfeeding. He recollects the La Leche League group being wonderful teachers and happy to learn that jaundice should be understood through feeding adequacy and physiological adaptation, rather than a reason to stop breastfeeding.
Dr. Gartner was later approached by the AAP executive director to assemble a group to address breastfeeding concerns discussed at the Innocenti Declaration in Europe in 1990. 2 Larry invited two key ABM founders, Ruth Lawrence and Audrey Naylor. They concluded that the AAP needed a formal policy on breastfeeding, which led to the formal Section on Breastfeeding, which became very successful for promoting breastfeeding and led to the first AAP policy statement on Breastfeeding in 1997. 3
Then comes the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM)! Dr. Gartner recalls getting a call from Beth Williams in San Francisco about the idea of a physician organization focused on breastfeeding education for physicians. His own wife Carol helped write some incorporation documents, while Ruth Lawrence and husband Rob also joined the planning, including photography. Larry recalls the first meeting at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Chicago, where he may have taken a mug home as a memento!
In pondering the most important contributions ABM has made to the field, Dr. Gartner is proud of the scholarly protocols and position statements, as well as breastfeeding guidelines. He was the author of the ABM first protocol on Jaundice, 4 which has since been updated. 5 He is disappointed, however, that we are still not getting the importance of breastfeeding into “mainstream medicine” by recognizing its important biologic effects, social effects, and even financial benefits. Says Larry, “It still languishes by the side and it shouldn’t.”
Dr. Gartner also recalls a course he developed for the University of Chicago undergraduates on developmental medicine, which was really focused on everything you could learn from human milk. “You can teach infectious disease, immunology, oncology, I mean, you name it, every aspect of human biology is contained in one drop of human milk!”
Dr. Gartner wishes that more male physicians would be involved in supporting breastfeeding. He also wishes that more mothers were able to breastfeed exclusively for 6 months and continue for at least 2 years as recommended.
Finally, we reflected on our own first encounter in 2003. I received a “cold call” from Larry in the early days of the Section on Breastfeeding. He asked me to be the first Chief Chapter Breastfeeding Coordinator (Chief CBC) to organize the CBCs (state leaders for breastfeeding in each AAP Chapter) from each of the 50 US states and territories. I recall telling him that my plate was so full with my three young boys and busy clinical practice. I’ll never forget what he told me—“People with full plates generally do more than anyone else.” I then agreed, and so began my journey into breastfeeding leadership.
So many of our ABM members are true members of the Full Plate Club, and you really are getting things done. Thank you, Dr. Gartner, for helping us reach higher for families and children and for giving us such a great example to learn from and lean on as we try our best.