Birth Documentary Contest: $1000 Prize

Birth Matters Virginia (an organization that works to promote an evidence-based model of maternity care) is soliciting 4-7 minute educational videos about birth. The first-place winner will receive a cash prize of $1000. Second place $500 and an "honorable mention" prize of $100 will also be awarded. The deadline for entering the contest is Mother's Day, May 10, 2009.

Guest judges include: Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein, acclaimed producers of The Business of Being Born and Sarah J. Buckley., MD , international birth expert and author of Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering. Ricki, Abby, and Sarah will join a consumer-based panel of judges who will be evaluating the tone, educational content, creativity and more. You don't have to be a professional to enter and you don't have to be from Virginia . We'd love to get videos from mothers, fathers, filmmakers, film students, birth advocates, and anyone else who is interested in birth or film or wants to win $1000.

As the national rate of c-sections surpasses 30% and the U.S. ranks 41st in terms of maternal mortality, it is more important than ever for women and their partners to be educated about the options they have during pregnancy and birth. Birth Matters Virginia advocates "evidence-based" maternity care, which simply means using the best available research on the safety and effectiveness of specific practices to help guide maternity care decisions and to facilitate optimal outcomes in mothers and newborns. There are a lot of ways to approach that topic, and we're looking forward to the variety of entries.

For rules and to see how to enter, please visit www.birthmattersva.org/videocontest.html>

You can also join our Facebook group to get updates about the contest and exchange ideas with other participants
And if you have questions, email Sarah at mailto:Richmond@birthmattersva.org

Hospitals should eliminate supplementation of healthy newborns

Hospital Practices and Women's Likelihood of Fulfilling Their Intention to Exclusively Breastfeed See link to article here
Eugene Declercq, PhD, Miriam H. Labbok, MD, MPH, Carol Sakala, PhD, MPH and MaryAnn O'Hara, MD, MPH

Objectives. We sought to assess whether breastfeeding-related hospital practices reported by mothers were associated with achievement of their intentions to exclusively breastfeed.

Methods. We used data from Listening to Mothers II, a nationally representative survey of 1573 mothers who had given birth in a hospital to a singleton in 2005. Mothers were asked retrospectively about their breastfeeding intention, infant feeding at 1 week, and 7 hospital practices.

Results. Primiparas reported a substantial difference between their intention to exclusively breastfeed (70%) and this practice at 1 week (50%). They also reported hospital practices that conflicted with the Baby-Friendly Ten Steps, including supplementation (49%) and pacifier use (45%). Primiparas who delivered in hospitals that practiced 6 or 7 of the steps were 6 times more likely to achieve their intention to exclusively breastfeed than were those in hospitals that practiced none or 1 of the steps. Mothers who reported supplemental feedings to their infant were less likely to achieve their intention to exclusively breastfeed: primiparas (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 4.4; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.1, 9.3); multiparas (AOR = 8.8; 95% CI = 4.4, 17.6).

Conclusions. Hospitals should implement policies that support breastfeeding with particular attention to eliminating supplementation of healthy newborns.

If you would like to read the full text, email me and I can send it to you as a pdf.
blue.sky[at]gol.com

WHO's Infant and young child feeding model chapter for textbooks

Infant and young child feeding: Model Chapter for textbooks for medical students and allied health professionals

The Model Chapter on Infant and Young Child Feeding is intended for use in basic training of health professionals. It describes essential knowledge and basic skills that every health professional who works with mothers and young children should master. The Model Chapter can be used by teachers and students as a complement to textbooks or as a concise reference manual.

http://www.who.int/nutrition/publications/infantfeeding/9789241597494.pdf

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

"Breastfeeding is... making lunch for your child"

"Breastfeeding is nothing fancier than making lunch for your child. Maybe you need a specialist’s help to do that – maybe something makes it hard for you to open the jar, for instance – but mostly you just need to see other mothers, all making lunch in different ways, from different ingredients, all feeding their children, as mothers always have."

Beautiful quote from Diane Wiessinger's web siteCommon Sense breastfeeding

Come to La Leche League on April 10th 2009 in Shibuya, and see how much more the real world has to offer breastfeeding mothers...things you cannot learn from books or online!!

Expressing milk: how to maximise output

This video is reproduced from Stanford School of Medicine web site:
Click on the video to start it.



This material was developed by Jane Morton, MD Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University,and produced for educational purposes only. Copies of the full video "Making Enough Milk, The Key to Successful Breastfeeding. . . Planning for Day One " may be purchased. Please visit www.breastmilksolutions.com for more information.

Breastfeeding & equal sharing of responsibilities: CSW March 2009

Statement on BREASTFEEDING & the equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men for the 53rd meeting of Commission on the Status of Women, March, 2009

▪Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine ▪ International Lactation Consultant Association ▪La Leche League International ▪World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action

As people increasingly strive for gender equality, the list of gender-linked tasks and responsibilities, which once were assigned to men or to women only, is shrinking fast. Breastfeeding, though, is still a challenge. Is it possible to share responsibility for work, decision-making, and well-being equally between men and women, when women breastfeed and men do not?

The value of breastfeeding. Breastfeeding provides more than nutrition. It is a system of protection and care for babies and young children. Mothers’ milk aids immune system development. The “delivery system” of suckling and close contact builds emotional attachment and keeps an adult near the baby for safety and stimulation. Some babies and mothers get by without breastfeeding, but even the best compensatory feeding methods entail costs at individual, family, and national levels. WHO and UNICEF underscore the importance of optimal infant feeding, based on breastfeeding, as the foundation for the economic development of nations.i Since alternatives to breastfeeding carry costs, including poorer survival rates and increased illness, it makes good sense to share the responsibility of assuring that women can succeed at breastfeeding.

Child-bearing and child-rearing. Whether born into a single-carer family, a nuclear family, an extended family, or a family that can afford to hire domestic help, the truth is that children require a lot of care and attention. For most mothers, equal sharing of work within the household is a dream, not a reality. There is growing acknowledgment by international bodies and feminist economists that care-giving is productive work. What is needed is to officially recognise and value the work of care-giving. Breastfeeding doubly deserves recognition, for it provides care and a “product” (milk)—both usually ignored by policy-makers.

There are many fathers who take care of their newly-born and older children, but they are still a minority. Male care-giving is praised and facilitated in some cultures but scorned in others. We call on governments to institute policies, such as paternity leave, parental leave, and family leave that support men’s involvement in caring for their babies and children. We call on community leaders everywhere to promote an attitude of support for mothers and fathers in the crucial task of raising the next generation, beginning with support for healthy child-bearing.

Care-giving in the context of HIV/AIDS. In resource-poor settings, HIV-positive mothers can give their babies the best protection from death by breastfeeding exclusively —using replacement feeding only if it is acceptable, feasible, affordable, sustainable, and safe. Care-giving in this context includes good nutrition, counselling and anti-retroviral treatment for mothers, plus supportive lactation care to prevent or treat breast problems and oral lesions (which increase the risk of transmitting the disease). If women do not know their HIV status, they should breastfeed exclusively and be protected from exposure to the virus. Equal responsibility by men and women is especially needed to eliminate unsafe sexual practices.

The work of reproduction. Beginning with conception, progressing through pregnancy, labour and birth, and breastfeeding, until the child’s final weaning from the breast, the reproductive roles of males and females are complementary, not identical. Decision-making can be shared, but the physical work is embodied in the mother.

Reproduction has risks for a woman’s life and health. It brings nutritional, physical and emotional stress. Child-bearing imposes direct time and energy costs. Ideally women are supported to carry the physical burden of reproduction within an enabling environment. The child’s father, plus family and friends (especially if the father is absent), have the responsibility of providing this enabling environment.

Reproduction also has joys to be shared. Much has been learned about the effect of lactation hormones on the maternal brain, and there is growing evidence that close contact with a baby and mother can change the male brain in positive ways.Fatherhood offers men a unique opportunity to evolve as sensitive beings by expanding their care-giving and communication skills.

In times past, wet nursing was the only practical alternative for maternal breastfeeding. Now technology enables parents to substitute manufactured formulas for human milk, use feeding bottles and teats as surrogate breasts, and pump milk instead of relying on babies to suckle. While these techniques may sometimes be life-saving, they threaten to replace breastfeeding by spilling over into normal situations. The existence of new techniques must not be allowed to de-value, or worse, to erase, the breastfeeding lore that mothers and grandmothers pass to their daughters.

Fathers feeding babies. Shared responsibility does not mean that a father must feed his baby half the time. Instead, equitable and reciprocal responsibility can be practised by a father’s taking primary responsibility for another task, such as bathing, dressing, massaging or amusing his baby, or bringing food and drink to the mother while she feeds the baby. Once the child is six months old, the father can be the family specialist in complementary feeding. In child care, the passage of time provides many opportunities for parents to adjust and readjust the balance of their shared tasks.

Sharing responsibility need not mean a mathematically equal division of tasks. Instead, it means men and women negotiate to ensure that tasks are divided fairly and with respect. It means that everyone’s needs are met, both the needs they have in common and the needs that are different, beginning with the needs of the baby. To the breastfeeding mother, shared responsibility gives a vital foundation of support.

Correspondence: chrismulfo[@]comcast.net
Endnotes
i WHO, Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding, 2003. Para 1.
http://www.who.int/child-adolescent-health/New_Publications/NUTRITION/gs_iycf.pdf

ii Daly M & G Standing, Care Work: the quest for security, ILO, 2001, p 1.

iii Folbre N (2003) Caring Labor. Transcription of a video by Oliver Ressler. http://www.republicart.net/disc/aeas/folbre01_en.htm

iv Smith JP & LH Ingham (2005) Mothers’ milk and measures of economic output. Feminist Economics 11(1), 41-62.

v LINKAGES Project (2004) Breastfeeding and HIV/AIDS Frequently asked questions. http://www.pronutrition.org/files/FrequentlyAskedQuestions_HIV_eng.pdf

vi Anthes E. Stretch Marks for Dads: What fatherhood does to the body and the brain. Slate.com (2007) http://www.slate.com/id/2168389/ 2