To register: https://www.wakeahec.org/CourseCatalog/CASCE_courseinfo.asp?cr=30417
or copy and paste the address into your web browser.
To print the brochure: https://www.wakeahec.org/coursecatalog/brochures/abc2010nb.pdf
or copy and paste the address into your web browser.
Please forward to colleagues.
The NC Child Fatality Task Force requests suggestions of issues that the
Task Force should consider for the upcoming legislative year.
Send your ideas to:
Elizabeth Hudgins, Executive Director
Child Fatality Task Force
Office: 919-707-5626
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Source: The Atlantic
If you don’t have a small baby, or if your baby is breastfed (and see note at the end of this post), you no doubt are missing the furor over “functional” ingredients that companies have been adding to infant formulas.
DHA (an omega-3 fatty acid) came first. As I discuss in my book What to Eat, infant formula companies could not wait to add it. They knew they could market it on the basis of preliminary evidence associating DHA with visual and cognitive benefits in young infants. Although evidence for long-term benefits is scanty, the companies also knew that they could charge higher prices for formulas containing DHA.
The FDA approved the use of DHA in infant formulas on the grounds that it is safe, but did not require the companies to establish that DHA makes any difference to infant health after the first year. Because of its marketing advantage, virtually all infant formulas now contain DHA. Surprise! They also cost more.
Companies now want to add other ingredients, such as prebiotics, probiotics, lutein, lycopene, and betacarotene, which also can be marketed as healthier and at higher prices.
In response, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has issued a report (PDF) on the lack of evidence for the benefits of functional ingredients and the substantial harm they will cause to the economic viability of the WIC program, the USDA’s assistance program for low-income mothers and children.
WIC buys about half the infant formula sold in the United States each year. WIC is not an entitlement program, meaning that the number of participants is limited by available funding (a GAO report explains how this works—click here for a PDF).
As pressure mounts to limit federal discretionary spending, it is critical to ensure that WIC not spend funds on foods with functional ingredients that do not deliver clinically significant benefits. WIC spent approximately $850 million on infant formula last year, and a recent USDA study found that more than ten percent of that spending ($91 million annually) is attributable to higher-priced formulas with functional ingredients. Under current law, the additional cost to WIC of providing foods with these ingredients is likely to grow substantially as such foods proliferate.
As the report explains, formula companies do not have to demonstrate that the added—and more expensive—ingredients do any good:
There is no mechanism within the national WIC program that requires USDA to review the research evidence on the claimed benefits of these functional ingredients or to base decisions about whether to offer foods containing such ingredients on their benefits and the specific needs of WIC participants. Currently, instead, infant formula manufacturers themselves decide whether WIC offers infant formulas with new functional ingredients, while state WIC programs decide whether WIC should offer other foods with such ingredients.
As I keep saying, functional foods (and ingredients) are about marketing, not health. If companies are going to add functional ingredients—and charge higher prices—they need to have some convincing scientific evidence to back up their claims.
Postscript: Laurie True of the California WIC program writes:
Congressman George Miller, chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, is writing the bill that reauthorizes the WIC Program this week. He should include a provision requiring independent scientific review of the efficacy of these “functional ingredients” before USDA allows them in WIC foods and infant formula.
Note: Lori Dorfman sends a Berkeley Media Studies Group issue paper (PDF) on how to advocate for hospitals and workplaces to make it easier for moms to breastfeed.
Catherine Sullivan and I just participated in the State Breastfeeding Coalitions Teleconference about the free new text service Text4Baby today, June 8th, from 2:00 – 3:00 PM.
You can see the slides from the presentation posted on the USBC Web site. Please go to www.usbreastfeeding.org and click on “Bi-Monthly Coalitions Teleconferences” in the Quick Links box (bottom right of the USBC home page). You’ll be able to listen to an approximately 30 minute recording of the presentation starting tomorrow. If you have questions, please see the last few slides that have email addresses for you to contact them.
We can all get posters advertising this service from partners@text4baby.org
One exciting fact I learned is that research shows young African American mothers text disproportionately more than other groups – so this may be a very useful tool!
Mary Overfield
Also see additional link
Links to TV Programs
For those of you who missed the awesome presentation at our conference or those of who did not see this video enough for our lecture “Got Enough Milk? Milk Supply Issues: Pumping, Infertility, Older Mothers, and Adoptive Nursing” by Diane Asbill, RN, IBCLC, Lactation Consultant for the Intensive Care Unit, UNC Hospitals, Chapel Hill, NC.
Here is the link to seeDr. Jane Morton’s video that Diane showed
“Improving the health of mothers and their children is a primary goal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Protecting, promoting, and supporting breastfeeding, with its many known benefits for infants, children, and mothers, is a key strategy toward this goal.”
Please see attached CDC Breastfeeding Report Card
“The 2009 Breastfeeding Report Card shows how breastfeeding is being protected, promoted, and supported in each state using five “outcome” and nine “process” indicators. This allows you to make comparisons across states and indicators and work to increase breastfeeding nationwide.”
With the inclusion of this provision in health care reform legislation, the U.S. joins the rest of the industrialized world in recognizing breastfeeding as the natural outcome of pregnancy, and workplace lactation programs as the natural outcome of a society where the majority of mothers and infants are separated due to work.
What does the Reasonable Break Time for Nursing Mothers law do?
What types of employers are covered?
What types of workers are covered?
When does the law take effect?
Why is the law necessary?
Aren’t there state laws that already protect employed breastfeeding mothers?
Currently, 24 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia have legislation related to breastfeeding in the workplace. One of the strongest and most detailed was passed in Oregon in 2007. The Oregon law served as a model for the federal provision, introduced into health reform legislation in 2009 by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR). A federal law was needed to cover the many states without worksite protection for breastfeeding mothers. The new federal law will provide a minimum level of support in all states, but if an existing state law provides stronger protections, the state law will prevail.
What does an employer stand to gain?
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Level of Support |
Components of Program |
Return on Investment |
| Basic Accommodation |
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$1 investment $2 return |
| Comprehensive Accommodation |
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$1 investment Up to $3 return |
What do the time and space requirements in the new law mean?
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In Oregon, “reasonable” time for milk expression is defined as: “a 30-minute rest period to express milk during each four-hour work period, or the major part of a four-hour work period, to be taken by the employee approximately in the middle of the work period.” This matches wage and hour law, and also covers exempt and part-time employees. The effort is to match the biological rhythm of a breastfeeding mother and child to the structured rhythm of the workday as closely as possible. A breastfeeding employee needs to express milk regularly to maintain her milk supply. Research and experience have shown that a 30-minute break in every four-hour work period is the minimum time needed for the employee to get to the designated space, set up the pump, express adequate milk, clean pump parts, get the milk to cold storage, and return to the work station. The Oregon law’s definitions have provided great flexibility in designating space for milk expression, while still meeting the threshold of the law. Unlike the Americans with Disability Act, businesses in Oregon are not required to make major changes to the built environment. Examples of creative solutions include:
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What about complaints, enforcements, penalties, and “undue hardship”?
Resources for employers and managers:
Resources for breastfeeding employees:
Source: USBC
These are the proposed Healthy People 2020 Objectives for breastfeeding
Source: Heathly People 2010
” It’s official: with the passing of the health care reform reconciliation bill, the provision of reasonable break time and a place to express breast milk in the workplace is now federal law!
See Amelia Psmythe’s note below with helpful information about the next steps in implementing the law. USBC will be keeping close tabs on this process, and we are collaborating with MomsRising and others to spread the word to moms across the country. We will be issuing a press release shortly, and encourage all state coalitions to either 1) forward our press release to your local media, or 2) use it as a template to write your own release.
I’m attaching the actual language of the provision as a PDF file. It has already received some favorable media attention on NPR.org:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/03/new_health_laws_workplace_brea.html
Thanks again to everyone for their support and patience while we had to “lay low” to allow this to pass. And please do call or write to Senator Merkley to thank him!”
Best regards,
Megan E. Renner
Executive Director
United States Breastfeeding Committee (USBC)
2025 M Street, NW, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
The mission of the United States Breastfeeding Committee is to improve the Nation’s health by working collaboratively to protect, promote and support breastfeeding. Donate today!
“Good Day, friends!
As I’m sure many of you are aware, US Senator Jeff Merkley’s Reasonable Break Time for Nursing Mothers amendment passed as part of health care reform! Employer accommodation is now the law of the land.
What courage for a freshman Senator to propose a health care amendment in a contentious climate, see it through a bi-partisan committee, and now guide an implementation process on landmark legislation! Please take a moment to thank Senator Merkley by calling his office at: 202-224-3753 or use the online form: http://merkley.senate.gov/contact/
I recognize that questions abound regarding the timing, implementation, oversight, complaint process, arbitration and resolution under this provision. I am writing to assure you that Senator Merkley’s office is in conversation with the US Department of Labor to clarify all of this. I am in close communication with the Senator and his Portland and DC staff, and I will post to this listserve, and continue to update the BCO website and BCO Facebook page as new information comes in.
In our state process, where the Bureau of Labor and Industry (BOLI) is the administrator of our law, passage of the law was followed by BOLI drafting Administrative Rules. These Rules interpreted and clarified the law, even adding a few practical provisions the law had not addressed. This took several months. The federal process is not the same, but I believe the US Department of Labor will need to undergo something similar.
I understand and empathize that women (and their advocates and health care providers) want to know what the new rights are. It is going to be our challenge and opportunity to counsel patience with the next step of the process.
The main message to share with the world is that this is a time of celebration, development and learning. Creativity and patience will be needed on all sides, but overall — the world is shifting to a paradigm that recognizes breastfeeding is the natural outcome of pregnancy, and workplace accommodation is the natural outcome of a society where the majority of mothers and babies are separated due to work. For now, we work within the framework of delivering the product of breastmilk to babies while they’re apart from their mothers, in order to facilitate the experience of breastfeeding when they are together. (At least, this is what I told the DC reporter who called at 6am PST, and I’m sticking to it. ?)
When our President said, “this is what change looks like” this is what he is referring to – that change is incremental. It begins with an imperfect step that through diligence, work and participation, is refined and strengthened. So it will be with this provision.
Trust that more information will follow, and it will be good.
Best,
Amelia
--
Amelia Psmythe, Director
Breastfeeding Coalition of Oregon
Mail: Community Health Partnership:
Oregon's Public Health Institute
315 SW Fifth Ave, Suite 202
Portland, OR 97204-5502
Email: Amelia@BreastfeedingOR.org
Web: www.breastfeedingOR.org
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