If you haven’t already seen the news about contaminated baby formula in China here’s the basic information:

SHIJIAZHUANG, China — Police arrested 12 more people Thursday as China expanded a crackdown in a scandal involving tainted milk powder as a fourth death was announced and more than 6,200 other babies were sick from the powder.

This is so sad. Unfortunately this isn’t the first time that formula (like any other food) has been dangerous – it’s just in the news right now. If formula feeding were saved for situations where breastfeeding isn’t possible and donor milk isn’t available, many fewer babies would have been exposed to the contaminated formula. Breastfeeding is a time commitment for mothers (of course, so is having a baby in the first place…) so fear of contaminated food is not going to be enough for families to succeed at breastfeeding — but perhaps it will remind families that breastfeeding is a safe baby-feeding option to try. Note: If you’d like to read more about how hard it is for families to navigate our society’s mixed messages about formula and breastfeeding check out BantheBags.org.