Emerald Coast Alliance for
Breastfeeding Support

ECABS is having a World Breastfeeding Month celebration next Thursday, August 18th at the Sacred Heart Women and Children’s Hospital, Classroom C&D in Pensacola.

The celebration will begin at 6:30p.m. with a welcome to all those present. We will be presenting the first ECABS Awards to highlight individuals in our community who have shown leadership and significant contribution to promoting, protecting, and supporting breastfeeding as a vital part of health and development of children and families.

Please join us in celebrating the work of our 2011 award recipients:

If you want to pass out an invitation to this event, please go here to download.

Hi Everyone in the ECABS area,

We are collecting shoes and other necessary items for people in Tuscaloosa and neighboring areas. Our Medela Representative, Cindy Wagner, has family with shoe stores in that area. Their stores are collection points for shoes (particularly for children) and other needed items for the Red Cross. We’ve arranged for someone from Pensacola to carry anything we collect up to that area on May 10th, so we are asking for you to bring donated items to Ronda Yoder’s home to get passed on up to Northern Alabama. The need is great and so many of us can’t do much else. We also have some addresses of contacts where we can mail gift cards for Walmart and other stores for people who have lost everything.

If you have a desire to help moms, babies and families in this very damaged area, we encourage you to get involved by donating the above items, or search out a way you can make a difference through another source. We have lived through some pretty horrible experiences after the Hurricanes in 2004 and 2005. Much help was sent our way then; let’s see what we can do now.

Drop off point in Pensacola: Ronda Yoder, 1245 Langley Ave. Pensacola (across from the Tryon Branch Library). Phones: 850-255-8058, 850-484-8228.

I’m sure there are many churches and other organizations that are looking to help. Here is the webpage for Calvary Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa with suggestions on needed items and other ways to help.

We have been notified that the website server for ECABS will be moved in location on Sunday night to Monday morning. There will be several hours when the website will be offline. This is just an update to let you know, if you are trying to access during those times, there may be problems for a few hours.

Breastfeeding Equipment to be Allowed as Medical Tax Deduction and Reimbursed by Flexible Health Spending Accounts

Washington, D.C. – In response to a request from Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Tom Harkin (D-IA), and Representatives Sander Levin (D-MI) and Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced they will reverse a ruling that denies equipment used to help women breast feed from being covered as a health care expense. The previous ruling excluded breast pumps from coverage under flexible health spending accounts and made them non-deductible on tax returns.

Merkley, Harkin, Levin, and Maloney wrote to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman in November to call for the decision to be reversed. Senators Merkley and Harkin were joined by 9 other Senators; 32 other House members joined Reps. Levin and Maloney.

In response to today’s decision, Senators Merkley and Harkin and Reps. Levin and Maloney released the following statement:

“Today’s decision is a huge victory for nursing mothers everywhere. Modern medicine has documented numerous health benefits linked to breastfeeding, including a reduced risk of illness in infants and a reduced risk of cancer in mothers. And because breastfeeding is so effective in preventing disease, it also happens to save billions in health care costs. We thank the IRS for their careful consideration and quick response.”

For the entire press release, go here.

ECABS is having a year-end celebration for all members, donors and volunteers next Tuesday, December 14th at the Carlton Palms in Pensacola. This will be a Drop-in type Open House w/light hors d’oeuvres and desserts. All members, volunteers and donors were mailed or delivered invitations last week. Please let us know if you did not receive yours. We look forward to seeing everyone and celebrating the end of a very successful first year for our Alliance. If you need to RSVP or let us know about a missing invitation, please use this link: email RSVP

Two moms were the lucky winners of our door prizes. Amy Fossa won a gift bag w/a variety of mom and baby friendly organic products: dark chocolate, tea, lotion, nursing pads, and many other items. Amy has a 7 month old son and appreciated the opportunity to use the fair booth. She had not heard of our alliance before seeing us at the fair.

Megan Stooksbury won a nursing ring sling. Megan is excited to use the sling with her 6 month old daughter.

We had a very successful first event for our young alliance. We had a wonderful time and many moms were helped by our being there. Everyone that worked the booth has had positive comments to share from the people that stopped by. So now we have to consider how to improve on this experience and what we might want to do differently in the future. Even those of us who don’t count fairs as one of our favorite things to do enjoyed the opportunity to interact with these moms.

Some information/statistics to share: 34 people volunteered at the booth: 10 students (primarily from JDCC, 1 from PSC), 2 instructors (PSC/UWF), 12 nurses/IBCLCs from SHH, 2 Peer counselor/IBCLC from WIC, 1 Healthy Start Nurse, 2 IBCLCs from BH, 3 Moms!!, 1 Pediatrician and 1 ARNP. Many people took 2 or more shifts. 1 pair of nurses from SHH worked a total of 15 hours each!!

We had many moms each day stop by to use the changing table area. Many brought their own supplies, but appreciated that we CLEANED the diaper changing area after every baby. We had 1 or more moms every day come in to feed their babies. We had siblings use the little table with crayons and books. 153 people signed the guest book!!

We had many items donated by corporations, healthcare groups, and individuals. We are well established with supplies and we could do any number of smaller festivals with the supplies we have now, so we will discussing that soon.

We will be having an end of the year celebration before we get heavily into the holidays. Be looking for an email with further information about that very soon. Thanks for all your help and interest in this activity and all the plans of the alliance. It is nearly time to renew memberships, so please consider joining for the 2011 year if you haven’t already. Renewal dues can be accepted now at any time through the mail or at one of our meetings.