I wanted to put in a plug for the US Department of Health and Human Services breastfeeding information webpages. The pages are attractive, easy to navigate, and have lots of good basic information. A sample of topics includes: up-to-date breastfeeding-in-the-news features, a page on milk banks, a latch video, links to contact in-person help, and…
Author: AdriaC
When breastfeeding is accepted…
Marin County Breastfeeding Coalition launched a public awareness campaign featuring life-size cutouts of breastfeeding mothers holding cards that say, “When breastfeeding is accepted, it won’t be noticed.” This is the long-term goal that we need for our culture: breastfeeding is so normal, so accepted that no one even thinks twice about a breastfeeding baby. When…
Time with baby…
Mothers really do need time with their babies to learn to breastfeed before having to head back to work. As this article by Anne Harding summarizes a study published in Pediatrics: The strongest predictor of whether a woman would continue breastfeeding was whether or not she returned to work within 6 weeks of delivery, the…
Oxytocin note
Oxytocin is a key hormone in breastfeeding — so important that it gets a chapter all to its self in Hale and Hartmann’s Textbook of Human Lactation. Oxytocin in the hormone that triggers “let-down” or milk ejection. The milk ejection is necessary for babies to get enough milk from their mothers. As we learn more…
More thoughts from the New Yorker
Jill Lepore goes on to look at what part of breastfeeding is the part that is important to babies’ well being: is it the breastmilk? or is it the interaction with mothers? And if it is (even at least in part )the interaction, why is pumping given so much priority? Rhode Island’s Physicians’ Committee for…
Real Recognition?
There’s good evidence that when mothers choose to breastfeed all of our society benefits from lower health costs. What if we could acknowledge this benefit with a tangible reward to mothers for this service? Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, makes this suggestion as part of a…
Pumping culture
In the New Yorker, Jill Lepore writes about the pervasiveness of breast pumps. A few quotes that I found interesting: Today, breast pumps are such a ubiquitous personal accessory that they’re more like cell phones than like catheters. Last July, Stephen Colbert hooked up to a breast pump on “The Colbert Report.” In August, the…
Breastmilk without a baby…
We’re lucky to live in a time and place where it’s uncommon for new babies to die. It still happens though and is very sad. One thing we don’t usually talk about is the lactation that comes after birth even if there isn’t a baby to nurse. Mothering Magazine has a really nice article about…
Images of Breastfeeding
Normal breastfeeding comes in all shapes, sizes, and situations. Enjoy!
Hands-free Pumping
Mothers like to read, do the crossword, eat lunch, go online, or do whatever while pumping. It’s hard to turn all your break time at work into just pumping time. To help women multitask there are lots of commercial and homemade hands-free pumping gadgets. This zip-front bustier is popular with a lot of women that…
Madison Breastfeeding Help 