BLUE SKY UPDATE Summer 2009

Last weekend I attended an excellent conference in Nagoya run by the Japanese Association of Lactation Consultants (JALC). They are working so hard to educate and inform Japanese doctors, midwives and health professionals about breastfeeding developments and changes in our understanding of how breastfeeding works.

Speakers included Jan Riordan, who wrote the definitive textbook for all students of lactation called Breastfeeding and Human Lactation, and Dr Christina Smillie whose DVD on Baby-led breastfeeding has significantly changed the way I (and many other IBCLCs) work with mothers and babies, with HUGE success. You may have seen it at one of my workshops.

I was also lucky enough to have dinner with Dr. Smillie in Tokyo, where she shared lots more of her clinical experiences, and emphasised that so much of breastfeeding success is about KEEPING MOTHERS & BABIES TOGETHER.
Evidence is mounting that everything goes better for mothers and babies where they spend lots of skin-to-skin time together, with baby snuggled on mum's chest, whether baby is awake or asleep. The release of oxytocin in both mother and baby provides numerous benefits for both, but especially, babies seem to be able to breastfeed better, and mothers produce more milk. I will post more about the benefits of oxytocin soon.

My new group, Heart 2 <3 (heart to heart), for parents of babies up to 2 months old has just started this year, and although each session has been small so far, we have enjoyed ourselves and the babies immensely. It is an opportunity to come and ask questions, without having a full-on lactation consultation, and you can ask questions or compare notes with other parents, share stories, and discuss any topic that is relevant to you and your little baby. Older babies are not excluded...just drop me a note first. Next session is tomorrow afternoon, and August and September sessions are in the works.

The first Blue Sky CPR/AED course is being held in Shibuya tomorrow morning (busy day!!) We have a whopping 23 parents registered! There will be a section at the end focusing on infant CPR, which I believe every parent should know. Our next CPR course will probably be in September or October. The waiting list is already open. This course is run in association with the Tokyo Fire Department and Dave Paddock from English Adventure.

Little Angels playgroup has its last session before the summer next Friday, July 17th. It will be a pot luck lunch, so please bring a plate of food to share. Our potlucks are always popular so please let me know if you plan to join us, as places are limited.

My breastfeeding workshops for expectant have been flooded with people this year, which has been fantastic! Upcoming dates are July 18th, September 13th, October 18th, November 15th and December 13th.

In other news:
La Leche League has a toddler meeting on Friday July 31st. The next regular meeting will be September 11th.
I will be talking at Tokyo Pregnancy group on Thursday August 27th.

I will be here throughout the summer, and apart from a couple of days in Nasu, I am available for lactation consultations and phone and email help as usual.
Have a wonderful summer, and if you are in Tokyo, keep cool!!

Does Breastfeeding Reduce the Risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome?

Breastfeeding is beneficial for infants and their mothers. Breastfeeding reduces the risk of gastrointestinal and respiratory infections. In some, but not all, countries SIDS prevention campaigns include breastfeeding.

This study shows that breastfeeding reduced the risk of sudden infant death syndrome by ~50% at all ages throughout infancy. We recommend including the advice to breastfeed through 6 months of age in sudden infant death syndrome risk-reduction messages.

PEDIATRICS Vol. 123 No. 3 March 2009, pp. e406-e410

Do you feel bad when breastfeeding?

Some mothers have very strong negative feelings well up inside them while breastfeeding, just before the milk begins to flow. These mothers feel fine and happy the rest of the time, and they know they are not suffering from post partum depression, so what is it that makes these bad feelings happen right before the "let-down" starts?

This is a recently recognised condition called D-MER, or Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex and there is a lovely website dedicated to this exact topic, D-MER: because breastfeeding shouldn't make you feel this way. They have found that it is a hormonal condition linked to a drop in dopamine that seems to occur whenever milk is released. The good thing to know is that it is treatable.

Watch their video here and visit their web site for more valuable information:

MothersMilkBank Charity Ride Australia

The Jetstar Gold Coast Titans MothersMilkBank Charity Ride will see George Doniger cycling from Currumbin to Cairns in Queensland. Starting Monday 16th March 2009 and finishing Friday 3rd April 2009, George will fundraise for the MothersMilkBank during his grueling 19 days of cycling.

The Charity Ride will start at a local IGA store at 9am and finish at a local IGA store at 3pm each day. At the finish of each day, the Lions Club will provide a sausage sizzle for a gold coin donation. This will give the local communities the chance to get behind this great cause.

Queensland is leading the way in helping our babies who need this valuable service but the ability to provide donor milk has stalled. Lack of funds to cover the expenses involved with testing and pasteurising the donor milk means babies and families are suffering without this service.

Since the commencement of the MothersMilkBank, 136 litres of pasteurised donor human milk has been provided for free to sick pre-term infants, as well as other babies in need.

The vision of the MothersMilkBank is to see a national network of Milk Banks established around Australia. The Federal and State Governments have acknowledged that a national network of Milk Banks will greatly improve the health of babies, saving the lives of babies and saving valuable health care dollars. Unfortunately the funding to achieve this vision has not been allocated.

If you would like to make a tax deductable donation or for more information, please visit the website www.mothersmilkbank.com.au

We are also pleased to announce the MothersMilkBank Facebook group! Come, join us and invite your friends. It is hoped we can make this a great place to support each other, ask questions and spread the word.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=61077410212

Thank you for your support, your generosity will play a vital role in the future health of Australia's children.

The MothersMilkBank Team

20% off workshops!

Blue Sky is offering a new week-day breastfeeding workshop from 2009. This is in addition to the Sunday workshop for couples, which continues to be available each month.

Host a workshop at your home for you and 3 friends or more between January 15th and March 1st 2009 and receive 20% off the registration fee for you AND your friends.

Choice of workshops:
Wednesday afternoons 1pm - 4pm
Thursday mornings 10am - 1pm

Research shows that women who receive prenatal education, postpartum hospital and home visits, and telephone calls from a lactation consultant are more likely to breastfeed through week 20 and at a higher breastfeeding intensity than women who do not receive assistance from a lactation consultant.*

If you would like to get breastfeeding off to a great start, this is the workshop for you!

# Workshop requires the use of a DVD player
# Discount can also be applied to couples' Sunday workshops if you arrange a group of 4 couples or more at your home.
# Full payment for all your group's attendees (minimum 4 people) must be completed 7 days before workshop.

For more details of the workshops see Blue Sky's web site.

* Bonuck, K., et al. 2005. Randomized controlled trial of a prenatal and postnatal lactation consultant intervention on duration and intensity of breastfeeding up to 12 months. Pediatrics. 116:6, 1413-26.

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Mention TPG to take advantage of this special discount!

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Breast milk contains stem cells

Breast milk contains stem cells
Monday, 11 February 2008
ScienceNetwork WA By Catherine Madden
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20081102-16879.html

The Perth scientist who made the world-first discovery that human breast milk contains stem cells is confident that within five years scientists will be harvesting them to research treatment for conditions as far-reaching as spinal injuries, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.

But what Dr Mark Cregan is excited about right now is the promise that his discovery could be the start of many more exciting revelations about the potency of breast milk.

He believes that it not only meets all the nutritional needs of a growing infant but contains key markers that guide his or her development into adulthood.

“We already know how breast milk provides for the baby’s nutritional needs, but we are only just beginning to understand that it probably performs many other functions,” says Dr Cregan, a molecular biologist at The University of Western Australia.

He says that, in essence, a new mother’s mammary glands take over from the placenta to provide the development guidance to ensure a baby’s genetic destiny is fulfilled.

“It is setting the baby up for the perfect development,” he says. “We already know that babies who are breast fed have an IQ advantage and that there’s a raft of other health benefits. Researchers also believe that the protective effects of being breast fed continue well into adult life.

“The point is that many mothers see milks as identical – formula milk and breast milk look the same so they must be the same. But we know now that they are quite different and a lot of the effects of breast milk versus formula don’t become apparent for decades. Formula companies have focussed on matching breast milk’s nutritional qualities but formula can never provide the developmental guidance.”

It was Dr Cregan’s interest in infant health that led him to investigate the complex cellular components of human milk. “I was looking at this vast complexity of cells and I thought, ‘No one knows anything about them’.”

His hunch was that if breast milk contains all these cells, surely it has their precursors, too?

His team cultured cells from human breast milk and found a population that tested positive for the stem cell marker, nestin. Further analysis showed that a side population of the stem cells were of multiple lineages with the potential to differentiate into multiple cell types. This means the cells could potentially be “reprogrammed” to form many types of human tissue.

He presented his research at the end of January to 200 of the world’s leading experts in the field at the International Conference of the Society for Research on Human Milk and Lactation in Perth.

“We have shown these cells have all the physical characteristics of stem cells. What we will do next is to see if they behave like stem cells,” he says.

If so, they promise to provide researchers with an entirely ethical means of harvesting stem cells for research without the debate that has dogged the harvesting of cells from embryos.

Further research on immune cells, which have also been found in breast milk and have already been shown to survive the baby’s digestive process, could provide a pathway to developing targets to beat certain viruses or bacteria.