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Archive for the ‘Breastfeeding In the news’ Category

Can Formula Marketing Affect a Mom’s Decision to Breastfeed?

April 6th, 2011

European Parliament votes to block DHA health claim

April 6th, 2011

London restaurant selling breast milk ice cream!

March 1st, 2011

New mothers looking for a bit of extra cash need to look no further than their own assets, as a London restaurant is now offering money for breast milk – to make ice-cream.

Covent Garden company, Icecreamists, has started serving ‘Baby Gaga’ to customers using milk donated from 15 women who responded to an online advertisement.

Pasteurised and churned together with Madagascan vanilla pods and lemon zest, the unorthodox dessert is served by a costumed Baby Gaga waitress and comes in a martini glass at £14 a dish.

Now the company is looking for more women to provide breast milk – and are giving £15 for every ten ounces that are extracted using breast pumps on site.

New mother Victoria Hiley, 35, provided the first 30 ounces of milk, and said the concept was a great “recession beater”.

“What’s the harm in using my assets for a bit of extra cash?” Mrs Hiley said.

“I teach women how to get started on breastfeeding their babies. There’s very little support for women and every little helps.”

Mrs Hiley said the ice-cream “melts in your mouth”, and added that if adults realised how tasty breast milk was it would encourage more mothers to breastfeed.

Matt O’Connor, 44, who runs Icecreamists, said he thought there had been a very positive response to the dish so far.

“No one’s done anything interesting with ice cream in the last hundred years,” he said.

“Some people will hear about it and go, ‘yuck,’ but actually it’s pure, organic, free-range and totally natural.”

To uphold health standards, lactating women undergo health checks the same as those run by hospitals to screen blood donors.

Another 13 women have reportedly volunteered to donate their breast

http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/food-drink/london-restaurant%20selling%20breast%20milk%20ice%20cream-blog-24-yahoo-lifestyles.html

Breastfeeding In the news

LOCAL MINISTER SHEDS LIGHT ON SUNSHINE VITAMIN

November 4th, 2010

Minister Aine Brady launches Vitamin D supplement for babies

Minister Aine Brady TD launched BabyVitD3 at the Westgrove Hotel in Clane, County Kildare, Monday 1st November at 8pm in response to the recent policy announced by the Health Service Executive.

The launch of BabyVitD3 responds to the Health Service Executive policy which states that: “It is recommended that all infants, from birth to 12 months, whether breastfed or formula fed, be given a daily supplement of vitamin D. This should be provided by a supplement containing vitamin D exclusively.”

Calls to raise awareness about Irish populations Vitamin D3 deficiency comes from the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive. Studies prove that this is especially important during the winter months when Irish people have amongst the world’s lowest Vitamin D intake.

Minister Aine Brady said: “I am delighted to support this local launch which addresses a national problem. Due to Ireland’s position north of the Equator and the lack of sunshine, it is essential that we follow the advice of the HSE and raise awareness of the importance of Vitamin D3.”

Vitamin D3, which is also known as the sunshine vitamin, is produced from the sun’s rays on the skin. Due to Ireland’s northerly latitude, we do not get enough sun to produce this essential vitamin. This crucial for all ages but infants aged 0-12 months are at particularly high risk of vitamin D deficiency.

Food Safety Authority of Ireland advised that a supplement providing exclusively vitamin D3 must be designed specifically to meet the needs of Irish people. This new product has to be in a suitable format for infants and also needs to be accessible.

In response to recommendations from the Food Safety Authority, Kildare based company Shield Health were the first company to provide an exclusive Vitamin D supplement that meets these exact requirements. Jack Kinsella, Managing Director of Shield Health, producers of BabyVitD3 commented: We’re delighted to have Minister Aine Brady for the launch, given that it is in the heart of her constituency here in Clane, that Shield Health is based and pleased also that a Kildare company is leading the way in this very important health care initiative for children.

Breastfeeding In the news

Abbott recalls beetle-tainted Similac baby formula!

October 6th, 2010

The Normal Newborn and Why Breastmilk is Not Just Food.

October 6th, 2010

What is a normal, term human infant supposed to do?

First of all, a human baby is supposed to be born vaginally. Yes, I know that doesn’t always happen, but we’re just going to talk ideal, normal for now. We are supposed to be born vaginally because we need good bacteria. Human babies are sterile, without bacteria, at birth. It’s no accident that we are born near the anus, an area that has lots of bacteria, most of which are good and necessary for normal gut health and development of the immune system. And the bacteria that are there are mom’s bacteria, bacteria that she can provide antibodies against if the bacteria there aren’t nice.

Then the baby is born and is supposed to go to mom. Right to her chest. The chest, right in between the breasts is the natural habitat of the newborn baby. (Fun fact: our cardiac output, how much blood we circulate in a given minute, is distributed to places that are important. Lots goes to the kidney every minute, like 10% or so, and 20% goes to your brain. In a new mom, 23% goes to her chest- more than her brain. The body thinks that place is important!)

That chest area gives heat. The baby has been using mom’s body for temperature regulation for ages. Why would they stop? With all that blood flow, it’s going to be warm. The baby can use mom to get warm. When I was in my residency, we would put a cold baby “under the warmer” which meant a heater thingy next to mom. Now, as I have matured, if a baby is “under the warmer,” the kid is under mom. I wouldn’t like that. I like the kids on top of mom, snuggled.

Now we have a brand new baby on the warmer. That child is not hungry. Bringing a hungry baby into the world is a bad plan. And really, if they were hungry, can you please explain to me why my kids sucked the life force out of me in those last few weeks of pregnancy? They better have been getting food, or well, that would have been annoying and painful for nothing.

Every species has instinctual behaviors that allow the little ones to grow up to be big ones and keep the species going. Our kids are born into the world needing protection. Protection from disease and from predators. Yes, predators. Our kids don’t know they’ve been born into a loving family in the 21st century- for all they know it’s the 2nd century and they are in a cave surrounded by tigers. Our instinctive behaviors as baby humans need to help us stay protected. Babies get both disease protection and tiger protection from being on mom’s chest. Presumably, we gave the baby some good bacteria when they arrived through the birth canal. That’s the first step in disease protection. The next step is getting colostrum.

A newborn baby on mom’s chest will pick their head up, lick their hands, maybe nuzzle mom, lick their hands and start to slide towards the breast. The kids have a preference for contrasts between light and dark, and for circles over other shapes. Think about that…there’s a dark circle not too far away.

Mom’s sweat smells like amniotic fluid, and that smell is on the child’s hands (because there’s been no bath yet!) and the baby uses that taste on their hand to follow mom’s smell. The secretions coming from the glands on the areola (that dark circle) smell familiar too and help the baby get to the breast to get the colostrum which is going to feed the good bacteria and keep them protected from infection. The kids can attach by themselves. Watch for yourself! And if you just need colostrum to feed bacteria and not yourself, well, there doesn’t have to be much. And there isn’t because the kids aren’t hungry and because Breastmilk is not food!

We’re talking normal babies. Breastfeeding is normal. It’s what babies are hardwired to do. 2009 or 209, the kids would all do the same thing: try to find the breast. Breastfeeding isn’t special sauce, a leg up or a magic potion. It’s not “best. ” It’s normal. Just normal. Designed for the needs of a vulnerable human infant. And nothing else designed to replace it is normal.

Colostrum also activates things in the baby’s gut that then goes on to make the thymus grow. The thymus is part of the immune system. Growing your thymus is important. Breastmilk= big thymus, good immune system. Colostrum also has a bunch of something called Secretory Immunoglobulin A (SIgA). SIgA is made in the first few days of life and is infection protection specifically from mom. Cells in mom’s gut watch what’s coming through and if there’s an infectious cell, a special cell in mom’s gut called a plasma cell heads to the breast and helps the breast make SIgA in the milk to protect the baby. If mom and baby are together, like on mom’s chest, then the baby is protected from what the two of them may be exposed to. Babies should be with mom.

And the tigers. What about them? Define “tiger” however you want. But if you are baby with no skills in self-protection, staying with mom, having a grasp reflex, and a startle reflex that helps you grab onto your mom, especially if she’s hairy, makes sense. Babies know the difference between a bassinette and a human chest. When infants are separated from their mothers, they have a “despair- withdrawal” response. The despair part comes when they alone, separated. The kids are vocally expressing their desire not to be tiger food. When they are picked up, they stop crying. They are protected, warm and safe. If that despair cry is not answered, they withdraw. They get cold, have massive amounts of stress hormones released, drop their heart rate and get quiet. That’s not a good baby. That’s one who, well, is beyond despair. Normal babies want to be held, all the time.

And when do tigers hunt? At night. It makes no sense at all for our kids to sleep at night. They may be eaten. There’s nothing really all that great about kids sleeping through the night. They should wake up and find their body guard. Daytime, well, not so many threats. They sleep better during the day. (Think about our response to our tigers– sleep problems are a huge part of stress, depression, anxiety).

I go on and on about sleep on this site, so maybe I’ll gloss over it here. But everybody sleeps with their kids- whether they choose to or not and whether they admit to it or not. It’s silly of us as healthcare providers to say “don’t sleep with your baby” because we all do it. Sometimes accidentally. Sometimes intentionally. The kids are snuggly, it feels right and you are tired. So, normal babies breastfeed, stay at the breast, want to be held and sleep better when they are with their parents. Seems normal to me. But there is a difference between a normal baby and one that isn’t. Safe sleep means that we are sober, in bed and not a couch or a recliner, breastfeeding, not smoking…being normal. If the circumstances are not normal, then sleeping with the baby is not safe.

That chest -to -chest contact is also brain development. Our kids had as many brain cells as they were ever going to have at 28 weeks of gestation. It’s a jungle of waiting -to-be- connected cells. What we do as humans is create too much and then get rid of what we aren’t using. We have like 8 nipples, a tail and webbed hands in the womb. If all goes well, we don’t have those at birth. Create too much- get rid of what you aren’t using. So, as you are snuggling, your child is hooking up happy brain cells and hopefully getting rid of the “eeeek” brain cells. Breastfeeding, skin-to-skin, is brain wiring. Not food.

Why go on and on about this? Because more and more mothers are choosing to breastfeed. But most women don’t believe that the body that created that beautiful baby is capable of feeding that same child and we are supplementing more and more with infant formulas designed to be food. Why don’t we trust our bodies post-partum? I don’t know. But I hear over and over that the formula is because “I am just not satisfying him.” Of course you are. Babies don’t need to “eat” all the time- they need to be with you all the time- that’s the ultimate satisfaction.

A baby at the breast is getting their immune system developed, activating their thymus, staying warm, feeling safe from predators, having normal sleep patterns and wiring their brain, and (oh by the way) getting some food in the process. They are not “hungry” –they are obeying instinct. The instinct that allows us to survive and make more of us.

Dr. Jenny Thomas – Lakeshore Medical Clinic ( Breastfeeding Medicine).

Breastfeeding In the news, Breastfeeding Info

Any mums out there willing to donote breastmilk?

August 25th, 2010

Supermum!

August 17th, 2010

We were featured in the Irish Mail on Sunday’s Supermum supplement!

Irish Mail on Sunday Once Born Feature!

Irish Mail on Sunday Once Born Feature!

Breastfeeding In the news

Male boost for breastfeeding

April 20th, 2010

THE HSE in the northwest is enlisting the help of fathers in a bid to boost breastfeeding rates in the region.

Health promotion development officer Liz Martin said fathers played a key and positive role in encouraging breastfeeding and yet there was a dearth of national and international research in this area.

A study she conducted among 13 breastfeeding mothers in the region found that their partners had a big influence in their decision to breastfeed.

The HSE now wants fathers whose children were breastfed to share their experiences and help design information leaflets aimed at encouraging new fathers.

Studies have shown that only 47 per cent of Irish women are breastfeeding when they leave maternity hospital compared with 80 per cent in Britain and nearly 100 per cent in Scandinavian countries.

Eamon Lawless, who is organising meetings for fathers in Mohill, Tubbercurry and Sligo, said the instinctive reaction of most people was to ask what role fathers could possibly have.

“The research that Liz did shows that if men play a supporting role it can make it easier for women and that they tend to breastfeed for longer,” he explained.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2010/0420/1224268693522.html

Breastfeeding In the news

Breast milk cheese on the menu in New York

March 9th, 2010

Breast really is best, according to New York chef Daniel Angerer, who has turned his wife’s ‘liquid gold’ into cheese.

Breast milk: the new cheese course? Photograph: Corbis

Breast milk: the new cheese course? Photograph: Corbis

Take four cups of breast milk, add rennet, salt and yoghurt – yes, four cups of breast milk, according to a recipe created by New York chef and restaurateur Daniel Angerer, who posted his formula for maple caramelized pumpkin encrusted cheese on his blog, and offered “whoever wants to try it is welcome to try it as long as supply lasts”.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2010/mar/09/breast-milk-cheese-new-york

Breastfeeding In the news