Emerald Coast Alliance for
Breastfeeding Support

We will be sponsoring and managing a breastfeeding support booth at the next Pensacola Interstate Fair on October 21st to 31st. We will provide an area for moms to breastfeed in privacy as well as a changing table, supplies, and water for moms. The Fair Director thinks that this will meet a very real need of the moms that attend and is very thankful for our participation.  We are looking for volunteers to staff the booth during most of the times the fair is open: weekdays 4p.m.-9p.m. (Monday 2p.m.-9p.m.), weekends 10a.m.-9p.m.

Each year, more than 4.3 million women give birth in the U.S.  Virtually all of these women will use at least one medication during pregnancy or during breastfeeding.

The InfantRisk Center is dedicated to providing up-to-date evidence-based information on the use of medications during pregnancy and breastfeeding.  Our goal is to provide accurate information regarding the risks of exposure to mothers and their babies.  By educating healthcare professionals and the general public alike, we aim to reduce the number of birth defects as well as create healthy breastfeeding relationships. Dr. Hale is the Executive Director of the InfantRISK Center, which is associated with Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Amarillo and Laura W. Bush Institute for Women’s Health. See our Feb 2, 2010 post about the new center.

They are NOW OPEN to answer calls Monday-Friday 8am-5pm central time. Please contact at (806)-352-2519.

WE NEED YOUR VOTES!

The InfantRisk Center is in the running for the Pepsi Refresh Project Good Idea Challenge! If awarded the grant, the InfantRisk Center would be able to grow and expand even more, helping more and more pregnant and breastfeeding women. Please click here and vote. You will need to set up a free account on Pepsi.com, but once you have set it up, you can vote everyday until the polls close. Start spreading the news to your friends & family and tell them to vote. There’s no time to lose, voting ends August 31st, 2010.

Everyone here at Hale Publishing and at the InfantRisk Center would like to thank you in advance for voting and helping the InfantRisk Center.

Moms Rising has provided us with an opportunity to contact our Federal legislators regarding an important infant feeding issue. Breastfeeding suffers from a number of barriers, including the often unsubstantiated claims that formula manufacturers engage in to persuade vulnerable mothers to use their products. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates safety but not efficacy of formula additives (do the additives have any beneficial effect on the infant). In other words, formula manufacturers can put additives in their formula and make what the FDA calls a structure/function claim alluding to improved immune systems and better vision which the FDA does not regulate compared with a health claim (prevents or cures a disease) which the FDA does regulate. The problem is, mothers cannot tell the difference between the two and interpret any claim as a health claim. Read the Moms Rising advocacy opportunity and tell your legislators to protect all infants from hype that is bad for babies’ health.

It simply isn’t right to take advantage of new parents when they’re vulnerable.

But baby formula companies are doing just that.  And this is especially wrong because empty infant formula advertising claims undermine evidence-based messages like “breastfeeding is best for babies.”  This has got to be fixed, and we have a chance right now to change the way these infant formula companies and other food manufacturers do business so that parents get the facts, and not just empty hype on labels.

Tell your Senator that the Child Nutrition Act should include independent scientific reviews of formula and other foods so parents can make the best choices for their infants.

http://action.momsrising.org/go/WIC/282?akid=2222.64027.ybLx_3&t=4

“All parents want what’s best for their babies, and we want them to feel empowered to make an informed feeding decision at one of the most vulnerable and precious times of their lives-the birth of a new baby,” explains Megan Renner, Executive Director of the United States Breastfeeding Committee (USBC). “The marketing of infant formula has been shown to undermine breastfeeding intention and success. Independent review of ‘functional ingredients’ will go a long way towards providing parents with the information they have a right to receive.”

Read the rest of this entry »

This is an article posted on the Advances for Nurses website regarding changing the culture about breastfeeding.

By Diane L. Spatz, PhD, RN-BC, FAAN

Changing institutional culture is a difficult task. In the U.S., with only 13.6 percent of infants exclusively receiving human milk for the first 6 months of life, breastfeeding is not the cultural norm.¹ Many women begin breastfeeding, but the drop-off rate is alarmingly high.

One reason women list for suspending breastfeeding is returning to work.

Setting the Stage for Lactation Support

In 2000, I was hired to improve the breastfeeding practices of mothers of children in our care at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The institution was determined to instill a culture that values human milk and breastfeeding, yet there were no organization-wide policies, trained staff, sufficient equipment, or space to facilitate milk production for mothers with children at Children’s.

Given the hospital employs approximately 3,000 nurses – many with little breastfeeding education – one of the first steps was to ensure a well educated and trained nursing staff.²

The Breastfeeding Resource Nurse (BRN) model was developed to ensure staff nurses could provide evidence-based lactation care and support.³

Toward that end, selected nurses take a 2-day, 16-hour course on the research and science of breastfeeding and human lactation and how to support families who are cared for in the hospital’s network.

Read the rest of this entry »

In honor of World Breastfeeding Week, Liebert Publishing has offered complimentary access to Breastfeeding Medicine, the official peer-reviewed journal of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine,online throughout the month of August. This is a great opportunity to access those journal articles that you have heard referenced all year!

This article discusses the new Health Care Reform Provision that requires unpaid break time for mothers to be able to pump. It outlines the requirements and some of the needs. It also points out that the policy does not cover everyone.

“The legislation covers only women who are paid an hourly wage, not a salary, although some state laws cover both.

‘Some states put their breast-feeding laws in their family-leave set of regulations,’ says Alan Quiles, a labor and employment lawyer in Miami. ‘In that case, the focus is more on having the time as a medical necessity as opposed to just a break.’

His colleague Kelly Kolb says, ‘In our mind, there’s no principled reason to treat hourly and exempt (salaried) employees differently with respect to this.’”

Please follow the link to see some state-by-state graphics and the rest of the article.

This is a great article from Hernando County, where peer counselors are coming on board to help breastfeeding moms. We already have peer counselors in Escambia County and are getting them in our surrounding counties in the near future!

Healthful choice

Peer counselors offer new moms breastfeeding help

By ANNA LAMY | Hernando Today

Published: July 29, 2010

Health officials say breastfeeding a newborn is the most effective way to start off a child on the right track to a healthier adult life.

In a recent mandate, all counties in Florida are required to have a peer counseling program in place for breastfeeding support and encouragement.

Hernando County ranks about 10 percent below the state average of 77.6 percent for mothers who initiate breastfeeding to their infant.

Hernando has not had a peer counseling program in place in recent years.

In contrast, Miami-Dade has been in practice with a breastfeeding support program and is ranked about 10 percent higher than the state average.

Thanks to a new grant, Hernando County Health Department, Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program will soon have more local peer counselors for breastfeeding available to new moms in the area.

The Breastfeeding Peer Counselor program offers local moms, training to become peers with the ability to help and influence mothers in a way health professionals cannot.

The counselors take a 20-hour course that includes training in breastfeeding basics, counseling skills and an emphasis on the role of being a peer counselor, making referrals for circumstances outside the realm of normal breastfeeding.

Mary Becker, an international board certified lactation consultant, serves as the training director for the Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Program in Hernando and Pasco counties, said most moms need basic information and support regarding breastfeeding.

She said they are currently training 12 peer counselors for Hernando County… (continued)

To see this whole article, click here.

WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–World Breastfeeding Week (August 1-7, 2010) provides an opportunity to highlight the benefits of breastfeeding and to make people aware of how we can lend support to mothers who want to breastfeed.

I am committed to promoting and supporting optimal breastfeeding practices with the ultimate goal of improving the public’s health. This is because breastfeeding is the best source of infant nutrition, and it provides immunologic protection and health benefits both to breastfeeding mothers and to the children they nurse.

The Affordable Care Act that was enacted earlier this year takes some significant strides in support of breastfeeding. The new law requires employers to provide time and a safe space for women employees who want to express their milk. It also requires health plans to offer certain preventative services without cost-sharing requirements, including counseling and support for mothers who want to breastfeed and for nursing mothers.

This fall, I will release a Surgeon General’s “Call to Action” that will draw from the best available science to explain how all sectors of the community can help create an environment that is supportive of mothers who choose to breastfeed. It will show how a community-wide approach can help reduce disparities among breastfeeding mothers and children of all backgrounds, and how to improve support for nursing women in their workplaces and communities.

I hope World Breastfeeding Week will help Americans become more aware of these resources and use them throughout the year.

Dr. Regina M. Benjamin,
Surgeon General

The Summer 2010 issue of Breastfeeding Matters, is here! Breastfeeding Matters is the newsletter of the Breastfeeding Coalition of Washington (BCW), a program of WithinReach. The link above will take you to the BCW website where you will see the Summer Issue of Breastfeeding Matters. It is a PDF so you can easily print it and read as a hard copy. Back issues are also available.