USLCA July 2010

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View more Breastfeeding Videos from Baby.HealthGuru.com

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(July 23) — The parties are strictly BYOB. But the place will be littered with babes, without any alcohol in sight.

That’s because these are BYOBoobz parties — yes, as in mammary glands. And the home parties are designed to give support, guidance and a few free goodies to new breast-feeding moms, as part of a mission to help them overcome the “booby traps” associated with nursing.

Sponsored by the nonprofit group “Best for Babes,” the parties launching this fall were developed in response to a party promotion earlier this year by the formula giant Nestle. Those parties, promoted in the spring on the website houseparty.com, included giveaways for new parents that breastfeeding advocates feared violated international formula marketing standards.

Craig Mitchelldyer, Getty Images

A woman feeds her daughter at a Delta Airlines counter during a Nurse In protest at Portland International Airport, Nov. 21, 2006.

The discussion moved from blogs to Facebook pages, including the fan page of Best for Babes, where, not surprisingly, followers quickly criticized the Nestle party.

“A lot of people were dismayed about these house parties out there promoting unhealthy feeding choices. People talked about boycotts and nurse-ins,” Best for Babes co-founder Bettina Forbes told AOL News in an interview.

“But then someone mentioned having breast-feeding parties and someone else chimed in with the BYOB idea. We wanted to do something really fun, so this fit perfectly.”

Best for Babes added the z, trademarked the name and approached sponsors for giveaways and support. The parties will launch in New York on Sept. 29 at Deva Spa in SoHo, Forbes said. Then the home party kits will be available for new moms, lactation consultants and others to host throughout the country.

“We’re interested in doing something nonjudgmental, something fun, something party-style. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re giving breast-feeding a makeover,” Forbes said in a telephone interview from the International Lactation Consultant Association’s 25th anniversary conference in San Antonio, Texas.

“The young moms out there, they’re attracted to humor and the inside joke. This is something they can relate to — something fun that celebrates the whole joy of breast-feeding and changes the stereotype.”

Forbes is quick to add that breast-feeding isn’t always about joy and bonding and all that beautiful stuff, and that one “booby trap” her organization wants to change is the notion that because breast-feeding is natural it is also easy.

“The truth is, it can be difficult and it’s messy, and you’re dealing with things like leaky boobs. But that’s part of life, the way anything is. We want to make it real, not a Hallmark card. But not impossible either.”

The home party kit is being developed with input from Facebook fans, and Forbes hopes it will also include local resources that are “babe-worthy,” or in keeping with the Best for Babes mission of supporting breast-feeding without guilt. The kit also will include information for moms who are unable to breast-feed — but rather than formula, the information will focus on obtaining “donor milk” from breast-feeding moms, she said.

The party kit was modeled after the Healthy Home party kit developed by the Healthy Child, Healthy World project to help parents keep their homes free of toxins, Forbes said. The BYOBoobz kit will include “goodie bags, swag stuff and lots of fun,” she noted.

“But really important: It will include evidence-based factual information about how to deal with the booby traps. No myths will be perpetuated at these parties — it will all be factual, evidence-based information.”

A Nestle spokesman told AOL News by e-mail that he had no immediate comment.

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World Breastfeeding Week Celebration

Come to the Weaver Street Market in Chapel Hill/Carrboro on Sunday, August 1st during Jazz Brunch Sunday.

There will be tables with exhibits from the member organizations of the networking group Birth and Breastfeeding Congress.

Each exhibit will feature a kid’s activity and there will be music from 11 – 12. At some point between 12 – 1 – during the band’s 20 minute break – the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute and the North Carolina Breastfeeding Coalition will be announcing the 2010 recipients of the Breastfeeding-Friendly Business Awards.

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By Nancy Mohrbacher IBCLC and Kathleen Kendall-Tackett PhD (Psychology), IBCLC

The 7 natural laws of breastfeeding

1. Babies are hardwired to breastfeed
2. Mother’s body is the baby’s natural habitat
3. Better feel and flow happen at the comfort zone
4. More breastfeeding at first means more milk later
5. Every breastfeeding mum and baby have their own rhythm
6. More milk out means more milk made
7. Children wean naturally

1. Babies are hardwired to breastfeed

Babies are born with the ability to get to their food source and feed without much help. A mother’s role is mainly to support and encourage her capable newborn. When she learns to use her baby’s hardwiring breastfeeding becomes easier and more enjoyable.

Babies are born with instinctive feeding behaviours, but for mothers breastfeeding is a learned skill. Even so, a complicated list of rules isn’t needed.

2. Mother’s body is the baby’s natural habitat

Babies are born needing to be held skin-to-skin.

Babies need almost constant touch. It is much more than “nice to have”. If they don’t get it, the odds of feeding and behaviour problems and poor growth increase.

Touch releases the hormone oxytocin in both mother and baby, enhancing their emotional closeness and their openness to breastfeeding.

3. Better feel and flow happen at the comfort zone

Pain is not a normal part of breastfeeding. There is an actual place in the baby’s mouth nicknamed “the comfort zone”, and when the nipple reached there breastfeeding is comfortable for the mother and baby gets more milk.

There are several strategies for helping the nipple reach the comfort zone. But once you know what needs to happen you may come up with your very own approach.

4. More breastfeeding at first means more milk later

At birth, a baby’s stomach is about the size of a marble and is not yet stretchy.

The early milk, colostrum, is purposely small in amount and concentrated so that babies can gradually ease into taking their food by mouth and slowly stretch out their stomach. The healthiest way to do this is to breastfeed often from birth.

Breastfeeding often prevents breast engorgement in the mother and also quickly brings in an abundant milk supply.

5. Every breastfeeding couple has its own rhythm

Normal feeding patterns vary among mammals based on the composition of the mother’s milk.

The breast is not like a faucet, with the same amount of milk available at all times. There is a natural ebb and flow of milk supply over the course of the day, and this effects how a baby breastfeeds.

6. More milk out means more milk made

Fluid intake, diet, and rest have little or no effects on milk supply. Draining the breasts is what sends a mother’s body the message to make more milk. The more times a day a mother fully drains her breast, the more milk she produces.

Breastfeeding patterns can differ greatly among breastfeeding babies. The amount of milk a mother’s breasts can comfortably hold can have a major effect on how a baby breastfeeds.

7. Children wean naturally

All children wean eventually, even if a mother does nothing to encourage it. Like all baby behaviour, children outgrow breastfeeding. In most cultures, natural weaning happens after years of breastfeeding, not months.

A natural weaning is safer and more comfortable for both mother and child. No matter what the age, there are many strategies that can make weaning a kind and gentle experience.

Source

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SESSION WRAP UP

7/13/10

CFTF PRIORITIES

Infant Mortality Prevention (Perinatal Health)

Despite deep cuts last year necessitated by the economic downturn, policy-makers faced another round of budget adjustments for the new fiscal year that started July 1 (fiscal year 2011). The perinatal health recommendations focus on preserving our state’s remaining infant mortality prevention infrastructure at previous fiscal year 2010 levels.  Each piece of this package works together to help babies be born healthy and to make it to their first birthday.

Thanks to Senator Purcell, Representative Weiss and other members of the Task Force, each of these elements is funded in the budget passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor:

• $350,000 for the NC Folic Acid Campaign to decrease neural tube defects and improve birth outcomes (non-recurring from the Health and Wellness Trust Fund);
• $325,000 for the Eastern Carolina University High-Risk Clinic to improve birth outcomes in Eastern North Carolina (non-recurring);
• $150,000 for Safe Sleep to avoid SIDS and other sleep-related deaths (non-recurring from Health and Wellness Trust Fund);
• $97,000 for 17P distribution to help prevent pre-term births (non-recurring from Health and Wellness Trust Fund);
• $408,000 for the Healthy Start Foundation to improve maternal health prior to and during pregnancy (based on last year’s budget);

Drunk Driving Deterrence, Detection and Conviction (Unintentional Death)

The recommendation from the Unintentional Death Committee focuses on assuring adequate resources for DWI deterrence, detection and enforcement.  Increasing the fee paid to restore a license following conviction for impaired driving provides needed and stable funds to the Forensics Tests for Alcohol Branch which runs the program to protect the roads from impaired drivers.  This bill (S655) has been ratified.  We thank Senator Jones, Representative Weiss, other members of the Task Force and many allies.

Extended Hours for CARELINE to Address Teen Suicide Calls (Intentional Death)

The Intentional Death Committee recommendation focuses on restoring the hours of North Carolina’s CARELINE to 24 hours per day, every day of the week to better handle teen suicide (and other) calls.  The CARELINE currently operates every day of the week from 7AM to 11PM. (Teen suicide calls that come in after hours are handled by the National Suicide Prevention Line.) The new budget will reduce funds to the CARELINE so that it will operate weekdays from 7AM to 7PM with the Martin County Call Center handling after-hour calls.  (The Martin County Call Center currently focuses on calls relating to electronic benefits transfers associated with food assistance.)

Additional Funding for Safe Visitation Centers (Intentional Death)

The Child Fatality Task Force endorsed recommendations of the Joint Legislative Committee on Domestic Violence to promote safe visitation sites. These sites offer a safe setting for visitation between children and possibly violent parents. A bill was introduced to provide needed funding for the centers and other priorities of Joint Legislative Committee on Domestic Violence.  In this year of continued tough economic times, the bill did not pass.

OTHER ITEMS OF POSSIBLE INTEREST

The Responsible Individuals List (S567): This bill adds additional due process protections to the Responsible Individuals List, which is a list of individuals responsible for the abuse or serious neglect of children.  These provisions will allow the list to go back online to be used by DHHS to inform child care institutions, child placing agencies, group home providers, and other providers of foster care, child care, or adoption services that need to determine the fitness of individuals to care for or adopt children.

Dr. Radisch New Chief Medical Examiner: CFTF member and Unintentional Death Committee Co-Chair, Dr. Deborah Radisch, took over the reins as North Carolina’s Chief Medical Examiner earlier this month: http://www.dhhs.state.nc.us/pressrel/2010/2010-5-3-buttsretiring.htm

Op-Ed on Infant Death: The Charlotte Observer and Raleigh News and Observer recently ran a series of articles about SIDS deaths in North Carolina.  Please check out the response of CFTF Co-Chair Tom Vitaglione: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/06/20/540311/more-to-report.html (An abbreviated version also ran in the Charlotte Observer.)

Domestic Violence Interview: CFTF member and Deputy Director of the NC Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Beth Froehling, is interviewed on new legislation and other opportunities to better prevent and address DV issues. http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/cms/2010/07/05/nc-coalition-against-domestic-violence-on-new-efforts-legislation-to-protect-women-and-children/

Guide for Clinicians to Recognize and Report Child Abuse: The May NC Medical Board Forum Newsletter includes an article by CFTF Member Dr. Elaine Cabinum-Foeller:  Recognizing and reporting suspected child abuse: A clinician’s guide. http://www.ncmedboard.org/articles/detail/recognizing_and_reporting_suspected_child_abuse_a_clinicians_guide/

More Evidence on Benefits of Breastfeeding: The April issue of Scientific America details benefits of breastfeeding for nursing mothers. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=breastfeeding-benefits-mothers

Elizabeth Hudgins

Executive Director

Child Fatality Task Force

office: 919-707-5626

Elizabeth.Hudgins@dhhs.nc.gov

Mailing Address:

1928 Mail Service Center

Raleigh, NC  27699-1928

Physical Address:

5601 Six Forks Road

Raleigh, NC

fax: (919) 870-4822

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UNITED STATES BREASTFEEDING COMMITTEE: STATEMENT ON BREASTFEEDING AS A CRITICAL STRATEGY FOR OBESITY PREVENTION

Statement

TBA encourages you to add USBC to your favorite websites. The regular updates, press releases and information provided is growing every day www.usbreastfeeding.org

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Happy Reading!
Doraine Bailey, ILCA eGlobe Editor
Vicki Hobbs, ILCA Executive Coordinator 
 

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