USLCA
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Professional breastfeeding education and support. Breastfeeding, childbirth and baby care issues.
Monday, September 17, 2012
USLCA message
Friday, September 14, 2012
When Breastfeeding is not working
When Breastfeeding is Not Working: A Note by Beverly Curtis
by Breastfeeding Center of Pittsburgh on Friday, September 14, 2012 at 8:22am ·
When Breastfeeding is Not Working
Clinical research shows that 76.8% of mothers in the United States start out breastfeeding their babies. Most women intend to breastfeed and most women want to breastfeed. Unfortunately, despite our wishes, hopes and efforts, sometimes the breastfeeding experience becomes disappointing or frustrating.
If you are reading this and your breastfeeding experience is not all you hoped it would be, please know that The Breastfeeding Center of Pittsburgh is here for you. Our lactation consultants have helped countless mothers and their babies meet their breastfeeding goals or accept their breastfeeding challenges. Without skilled help mothers may find breastfeeding challenging overwhelming. With skilled help, breastfeeding may be learned by both mother and baby. The Breastfeeding Center of Pittsburgh provides support, no matter what your parenting or feeding decisions are.
Breastfeeding failure?
Mothers, naturally, may feel a deep sense of regret when breastfeeding ends too soon or is not what one had hoped. It is important to allow yourself to accept these emotions. However, it is equally important not to think of yourself as failing. You may not be satisfied with your experience and things may not have gone as planned, but there is no failure when it comes to breastfeeding. It is likely that you have given everything you have and done everything you could to breastfeed. Even if your child breastfed for just 24 hours, you have given your self and your baby an important opportunity, and that is something in which to be proud.
Often mothers may feel guilty about not breastfeeding longer. Guilt comes with motherhood. It is a motivating force for us to do something different next time we have the opportunity. Guilt directs us to focus on what we did not do rather than on what we accomplished. It tends to make us look backward instead of forward! Focus on what was accomplished: time with your baby, time focused on mothering, time discovering your babies needs and your family’s needs, time nurturing and nourishing your infant. Celebrate these victories and channel your energy into the next chapter of your life and focus on your baby. Moving forward and enjoying your infant and your mothering experience is an important part of acceptance and healing. Health care professionals meeting the needs of breastfeeding mothers and infants during pregnancy, delivery and beyond with skilled breastfeeding advice can help prevent breastfeeding difficulties and guide mothers into breastfeeding experiences which are enjoyable and meet their goals.
If you are not breastfeeding
It is important to remember that infants under one year require breastmilk or artificial baby milk (formula) to grow and develop. If you are not actively feeding your baby at the breast, your baby can be fed using expressed breastmilk, donor milk if your baby is in the NICU or PICU or artificial baby milk(formula) or a combination of any or all of the above.
Sometimes a mother decides to resume breastfeeding after deciding to wean or stopping breastfeeding for a short period of time. With patience and determination a mother can rebuild a milk supply. Contact us for more information...
Breastfeeding Second Time Around
The vast majority of women, can breastfeed their next baby, even if breastfeeding did not work out with previous children. Things that can help are:
Clinical research shows that 76.8% of mothers in the United States start out breastfeeding their babies. Most women intend to breastfeed and most women want to breastfeed. Unfortunately, despite our wishes, hopes and efforts, sometimes the breastfeeding experience becomes disappointing or frustrating.
If you are reading this and your breastfeeding experience is not all you hoped it would be, please know that The Breastfeeding Center of Pittsburgh is here for you. Our lactation consultants have helped countless mothers and their babies meet their breastfeeding goals or accept their breastfeeding challenges. Without skilled help mothers may find breastfeeding challenging overwhelming. With skilled help, breastfeeding may be learned by both mother and baby. The Breastfeeding Center of Pittsburgh provides support, no matter what your parenting or feeding decisions are.
Breastfeeding failure?
Mothers, naturally, may feel a deep sense of regret when breastfeeding ends too soon or is not what one had hoped. It is important to allow yourself to accept these emotions. However, it is equally important not to think of yourself as failing. You may not be satisfied with your experience and things may not have gone as planned, but there is no failure when it comes to breastfeeding. It is likely that you have given everything you have and done everything you could to breastfeed. Even if your child breastfed for just 24 hours, you have given your self and your baby an important opportunity, and that is something in which to be proud.
Often mothers may feel guilty about not breastfeeding longer. Guilt comes with motherhood. It is a motivating force for us to do something different next time we have the opportunity. Guilt directs us to focus on what we did not do rather than on what we accomplished. It tends to make us look backward instead of forward! Focus on what was accomplished: time with your baby, time focused on mothering, time discovering your babies needs and your family’s needs, time nurturing and nourishing your infant. Celebrate these victories and channel your energy into the next chapter of your life and focus on your baby. Moving forward and enjoying your infant and your mothering experience is an important part of acceptance and healing. Health care professionals meeting the needs of breastfeeding mothers and infants during pregnancy, delivery and beyond with skilled breastfeeding advice can help prevent breastfeeding difficulties and guide mothers into breastfeeding experiences which are enjoyable and meet their goals.
If you are not breastfeeding
It is important to remember that infants under one year require breastmilk or artificial baby milk (formula) to grow and develop. If you are not actively feeding your baby at the breast, your baby can be fed using expressed breastmilk, donor milk if your baby is in the NICU or PICU or artificial baby milk(formula) or a combination of any or all of the above.
Sometimes a mother decides to resume breastfeeding after deciding to wean or stopping breastfeeding for a short period of time. With patience and determination a mother can rebuild a milk supply. Contact us for more information...
Breastfeeding Second Time Around
The vast majority of women, can breastfeed their next baby, even if breastfeeding did not work out with previous children. Things that can help are:
- talking over your previous breastfeeding experience with a Lactation Consultant or a trained health care professional
- attending a prenatal breastfeeding class http://breastfeedingcenterofpittsburgh.com/services/classes/
- preparing a breastfeeding plan so that you and your health care providers understand your breastfeeding goals.
- attending a prenatal breastfeeding support groups such as La Leche League. Here's one in East Pittsburgh http://www.lllusa.org/web/PittsburghEastPA.html
- And, when your baby is born, offer the breast early and often, and ask for help from a Lactation Consultant
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Friday, August 31, 2012
We recommend the IBCLC credential for breastfeeding education & support.
www.surgeongeneral.gov
On January 20, 2011, Surgeon General Regina M. Benjamin released The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding in the Jack Morton...
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Recommend breastfeeding in the first hour after birth
| Welcome to The Magical Hour |
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The breathtaking award-winning DVD for prospective parents.
Dr. Kajsa Brimdyr, ethnographer and international expert in implementing skin to skin in first hour, guides you through the beauty and magic of the first hour after birth. Combining stunning videography of babies during this amazing time with the humorous and practical insights of real parents and the grounded research of international experts Ann-Marie Widström and Lars Åke Hanson, this DVD is both heartwarming and informative. It has been well documented that holding a baby skin to skin in the first hour after birth is crucial for improving health, establishing breastfeeding and creating a priceless bond between mother and newborn baby. Every baby goes through nine amazing stages when skin to skin with their mother during the first hour. Each of these stages are beautifully illustrated and discussed. This 30 minute DVD asks parents who have experienced skin to skin to share their thoughts and feelings about what this magical first hour after birth meant for them and their child. International in scope, it will give parents a realistic view of what it means to spend that first hour in direct uninterrupted contact with the new life they have been given. | ||||||||
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Monday, August 27, 2012
Working and Breastfeeding Moms have federal support
Section 4207 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also
known as Health Care Reform), amended the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), or
federal wage and hour law. The amendment requires employers to provide
reasonable break time and a private, non-bathroom place for nursing mothers to
express breast milk during the workday, for one year after the child’s birth.
The new requirements became effective when the Affordable Care Act was signed
into law on March 23, 2010. Download the text of Section 4207 only.
News and Resources:Resources from Department of Labor
Resources from USBC
Resources for Federal Workers
Resources for Employers and Managers
Resources for Employees
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Monday, August 20, 2012
What is the WHO Code?
What is the WHO-CODE?
| By Bettina Forbes, CLC | Posted on November 8, 2011 | 23 Comments | |  |
The primary purpose of the “WHO-CODE” is to protect mothers and babies from the highly effective, aggressive and predatory marketing of substitutes for breastfeeding (i.e. infant formula, bottles, artificial nipples) at the most vulnerable period of their lives, the birth of a new baby.
Health workers helping vulnerable new moms and babies, day after day, have discovered an alarming trend: in areas where formula and bottles are marketed heavily, breastfeeding rates go down, and infection, disease and mortality go up. This happens in countries around the globe, independent of a country’s economic status. In fact, it is estimated that globally, at least 1.5 million babies’ lives could be saved every year from improved breastfeeding & complementary feeding; in the U.S., it is estimated that 900 babies’ lives could be saved every year from improved breastfeeding rates, and $13 billion could be saved in health care and associated costs for ten pediatric diseases alone.
Some people don’t believe that formula marketing affects a mother’s decision to try breastfeeding or her ability to continue. It’s understandable: it is human nature not to want to believe that we can be so easily duped out of protecting and advancing our own and our babies’ health! So, before you read further, we urge you to please read this article on the 10 Most Successful Ad Campaigns of All Time. Read about what ad campaign helped Miller go from selling 7 million to 31 million barrels of beer, which ad increased Clairol’s sales 800%, and how Nike’s market share jumped from 18% to 43%. Now consider that in 2004, just as the U.S. government was rolling out its largest effort, the three-year, $40 million “Babies Were Born to Be Breastfed” awareness campaign, formula advertising almost doubled to $50 million annually. More importantly, the government’s campaign was diluted and rendered ineffective under the influence of industry lobbyists. Further, under lobbying pressure, a valuable, national meta-study conclusively showing the association of breastfeeding and lower rates of disease was suppressed. No surprise: Breastfeeding rates went down. Breastfeeding was outmarketed, and this is precisely why examples of successful formula marketing make it into marketing textbooks. Try to remain objective while watching this extremely sophisticated formula commercial, and then consider it in the context of research showing that breastfeeding protects against SIDS and is critical in the NICU.
In recognition of the devastating effect of formula and bottle marketing, the World Health Organization and Unicef adopted the “WHO-CODE” in 1981. The “WHO-CODE” is short for the World Health Organization’s International Code of the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. Scores of countries have enacted legislation implementing all or many of the provisions of the Code, but the U.S. has not. Because “The Code” is a voluntary pledge, it is easy for countries to say they uphold the code even when they don’t enforce the following stipulations:
We love to claim we are savvier at looking past the claims of a print ad or commercial–even when studies show us that rates of breastfeeding decline when formula advertising increases–but it is undeniable that we are easily influenced and persuaded by our trusted doctors, family members, and peers. Formula companies are turning respected authorities, i.e. health professionals and organizations, into marketing arms for their product, a practice which is extremely unethical, and is especially hard for the public to see through. Marsha Walker of NABA has collected examples of formula companies sponsoring pediatrician conferences, donating to nursing professional associations, and providing “information” and gift bags to Ob/Gyns for their patients.
We’ve learned that formula companies donate to hospital NICUs–a terribly mixed message
Formula-fed babies are at greater risk for Necrotizing Enterocolitis, a painful, often fatal, and expensive to treat disease.
Health workers helping vulnerable new moms and babies, day after day, have discovered an alarming trend: in areas where formula and bottles are marketed heavily, breastfeeding rates go down, and infection, disease and mortality go up. This happens in countries around the globe, independent of a country’s economic status. In fact, it is estimated that globally, at least 1.5 million babies’ lives could be saved every year from improved breastfeeding & complementary feeding; in the U.S., it is estimated that 900 babies’ lives could be saved every year from improved breastfeeding rates, and $13 billion could be saved in health care and associated costs for ten pediatric diseases alone.
Some people don’t believe that formula marketing affects a mother’s decision to try breastfeeding or her ability to continue. It’s understandable: it is human nature not to want to believe that we can be so easily duped out of protecting and advancing our own and our babies’ health! So, before you read further, we urge you to please read this article on the 10 Most Successful Ad Campaigns of All Time. Read about what ad campaign helped Miller go from selling 7 million to 31 million barrels of beer, which ad increased Clairol’s sales 800%, and how Nike’s market share jumped from 18% to 43%. Now consider that in 2004, just as the U.S. government was rolling out its largest effort, the three-year, $40 million “Babies Were Born to Be Breastfed” awareness campaign, formula advertising almost doubled to $50 million annually. More importantly, the government’s campaign was diluted and rendered ineffective under the influence of industry lobbyists. Further, under lobbying pressure, a valuable, national meta-study conclusively showing the association of breastfeeding and lower rates of disease was suppressed. No surprise: Breastfeeding rates went down. Breastfeeding was outmarketed, and this is precisely why examples of successful formula marketing make it into marketing textbooks. Try to remain objective while watching this extremely sophisticated formula commercial, and then consider it in the context of research showing that breastfeeding protects against SIDS and is critical in the NICU.
In recognition of the devastating effect of formula and bottle marketing, the World Health Organization and Unicef adopted the “WHO-CODE” in 1981. The “WHO-CODE” is short for the World Health Organization’s International Code of the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. Scores of countries have enacted legislation implementing all or many of the provisions of the Code, but the U.S. has not. Because “The Code” is a voluntary pledge, it is easy for countries to say they uphold the code even when they don’t enforce the following stipulations:
- No advertising of breast milk substitutes to families. (Read: Why formula advertising is different from other types of advertising, making it predatory.)
- No free samples or supplies in the health care system.
- No promotion of products through health care facilities, including no free or low-cost formula.
- No contact between marketing personnel and mothers.
- No gifts or personal samples to health workers.
- No words or pictures idealizing artificial feeding, including pictures of infants, on the labels or the product.
- Information to health workers should be scientific and factual only.
- All information on artificial feeding, including labels, should explain the benefits of breastfeeding and the costs and hazards associated with artificial feeding.
- Unsuitable products should not be promoted for babies.
- All products should be of high quality and take account of the climate and storage conditions of the country where they are used.
We love to claim we are savvier at looking past the claims of a print ad or commercial–even when studies show us that rates of breastfeeding decline when formula advertising increases–but it is undeniable that we are easily influenced and persuaded by our trusted doctors, family members, and peers. Formula companies are turning respected authorities, i.e. health professionals and organizations, into marketing arms for their product, a practice which is extremely unethical, and is especially hard for the public to see through. Marsha Walker of NABA has collected examples of formula companies sponsoring pediatrician conferences, donating to nursing professional associations, and providing “information” and gift bags to Ob/Gyns for their patients.We’ve learned that formula companies donate to hospital NICUs–a terribly mixed message
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