USLCA July 2010

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View more Breastfeeding Videos from Baby.HealthGuru.com

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La Leche League in Wake County ( www.lllofnc.org ) offers breastfeeding cafés – free, casual, drop-in programs for nursing moms and pregnant moms who want to know more about breastfeeding. It is fine to bring your lunch. Babies are always welcome.

Babiology, a children’s consignment store in Five Points at 2012 Fairview Road in Raleigh, hosts La Leche League breastfeeding cafés from 12-1 PM on Thursdays.

The RTP Breastfeeding Café meets from noon to 1 p.m. every Wednesday at the Diapering Doula, 4109 Grace Park Drive in Morrisville.

The Western Wake Breastfeeding Café meets from noon to 1:30 PM each Friday at the Itsy Bitsy Baby Spa, 1055 Darrington Drive in Cary.

Elsewhere in this region, the Carrboro Breastfeeding Café is from 1-2 PM on Mondays at The Red Hen, 201 Weaver Street in Carrboro.

A Fayetteville Breastfeeding Café is on the 4^th Friday each month at 10 AM at MacPherson Presbyterian Church, 3525 Cliffdale Road in Fayetteville.

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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.

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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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Dear Friend:

The United States Breastfeeding Committee (USBC) is proud to be a participant in the Best for Babes Foundation’s release of a unique new breastfeeding ad in a special Pregnancy Wellness Report inserted in USA Today last month in the greater metropolitan areas of Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. According to USBC Board Chair Dr. Joan Younger Meek, “The Board of USBC was enthusiastic about supporting an ad in the mainstream media that would reach a large target audience with the message that mother’s milk is a miracle.  We know that women need greater support in hospitals, in the workplace, and in their communities to be successful in providing their milk for their babies, overcoming obstacles to breastfeeding, and reaching their breastfeeding goals. This ad helps to spread that message.”

According to the ad, the real miracle isn’t the bra, but mothers, and their ability to make milk for their own and others’ babies. USBC joins Best for Babes in urging ALL parents to get the right support to navigate the “Booby Traps”–the cultural and institutional barriers that keep mothers from making informed feeding decisions and carrying them out. “Most moms want to breastfeed, and don’t realize how they are being undermined by the very institutions that should be helping them. Whether they breastfeed for two weeks, two months, two years, or not at all, they deserve to achieve their personal goals,” says Best for Babes Co-Founder Bettina Forbes.

The ad is the first of its kind that aims to raise awareness of the “WHO Code”–the World Health Organization’s International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes. It directs parents to hospitals, doctors, employers, and resources that are WHO Code compliant. “Most parents don’t know that the WHO Code was created to protect a parent’s right to make an informed feeding decision at one of the most vulnerable and precious times of their lives–the birth of a child, explains USBC member representative Marsha Walker, a leading expert on WHO Code compliance. “The aggressive marketing of artificial human milk substitutes has been shown to undermine breastfeeding intention and success, and parents should be careful about where they turn for breastfeeding support.” The ad also acknowledges breastfeeding industry companies such as Evenflo, Numom Nutrition, 60 Second Parent, Pumpease, My Baby Experts, Earth Mama Angel Baby, My Milkies, and Be Nice that are WHO Code compliant and support Best for Babes’ mission to beat the “Booby Traps” and change the cultural perception of breastfeeding.

The Best for Babes Foundation was established in 2007 to fight the barriers to breastfeeding, and to give breastfeeding a makeover by using mainstream marketing and branding. The Best for Babes ad series is eye-catching, fun, and positive–designed to cheer on, coach, and celebrate moms. “We want moms to have an awesome, empowering breastfeeding experience, ” says Best for Babes Co-Founder Danielle Rigg. “All parents want what’s best for their babies. They deserve support and resources, and those who can’t breastfeed deserve access to the next best substitute: pasteurized, screened human milk from a registered donor milk bank.”

View the ad OR download the full Pregnancy Wellness Report.

United States Breastfeeding Committee
2025 M Street, NW, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202/367-1132
Fax: 202/367-2132
E-mail: office@usbreastfeeding.org
Web: www.usbreastfeeding.org

The United States Breastfeeding Committee (USBC) is an independent nonprofit coalition of 41 nationally influential professional, educational, and governmental organizations. Representing over half a million concerned professionals and the families they serve, USBC and its member organizations share a common mission to improve the Nation’s health by working collaboratively to protect, promote, and support breastfeeding. For more information about USBC, visit www.usbreastfeeding.org.

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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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Get yourself a gigantic twins nursing pillow which can also be used as a flotation device in the event of a water landing.

Hold the first baby like a football (Studies have shown this won’t actually increase your interest in the game of football but it may increase your love of “Friday Night Lights.”)

Get the first baby latched on to your right breast.

Now pick up the second baby. Hold her like a football and get her latched on to your left breast.

Unfortunately, the first baby will have somehow come off your right breast. Get that baby latched on again. Of course, now the second baby has come off. This pattern will continue for a few minutes. Finally, you will have them both latched on. You will weep with joy.

But now one of the babies has now fallen asleep after exactly one minute of nursing. Attempt to wake him. Remove some of his clothes. Blow on his head. Tickle his feet. Sing him Lady Gaga. Threaten to make him watch “Couples Retreat.”  He will become more alert after the “Couples Retreat” threat, even though you are obviously bluffing. Babies can be so gullible. Get him nursing again.

Both babies are now breast feeding! At the same time! Time to grab the remote.

Keep both babies attached to your breasts while slowly picking up the remote. Don’t make any sudden movements that will disturb this delicate balance.

Just as you are putting on “Chelsea Lately,” an inadvertent shift in your body has caused the first baby to detach from the breast.

Now you will start crying. Because you’re hormonal. Because you’re tired. Because you have dropped the remote and now have to watch “Win a Date with Tad Hamilton.” Again. With commercials.

Compose yourself, be happy that you get to at least stare at Josh Duhamel and reattach the baby to your right breast.

You’ve done it! Welcome to tandem nursing!! Repeat every 3 hours.

And when you need a break, put your “assistants” to work…

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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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