I was just looking at the beautiful pictures on a soon-to-be-published calendar in my town, and thought I would post a link to it so you can all enjoy them! Lots of positive images, and encouraging stories too.

Breastfeeding: A Vital Emergency Response Are you ready?

OBJECTIVES OF WORLD BREASTFEEDING WEEK 2009

* To draw attention to the vital role that breastfeeding plays in emergencies worldwide.

* To stress the need for active protection and support of breastfeeding before and during emergencies.

* To inform mothers, breastfeeding advocates, communities, health professionals, governments, aid agencies, donors, and the media on how they can actively support breastfeeding before and during an emergency.

* To mobilise action and nurture networking and collaboration between those with breastfeeding skills and those involved in emergency response.

RATIONALE

* Children are the most vulnerable in emergencies – child mortality can soar from 2 to 70 times higher than average due to diarrhoea, respiratory illness and malnutrition.

* Breastfeeding is a life saving intervention and protection is greatest for the youngest infants. Even in non-emergency settings, non-breastfed babies under 2 months of age are six times more likely to die.

* Emergencies can happen anywhere in the world. Emergencies destroy what is ‘normal,’ leaving caregivers struggling to cope and infants vulnerable to disease and death.

* During emergencies, mothers need active support to continue or re-establish breastfeeding.

* Emergency preparedness is vital. Supporting breastfeeding in non-emergency settings will strengthen mothers’ capacity to cope in an emergency.

Hello All. I am frustrated and hoping some of you can share experiences! I am a huge supporter of breast feeding. I truly loved it. I remember thinking, "How will we ever want to wean from such a great experience?". My daughter is now almost 13 months old, has a healthy appetite for solids, loves cow's milk, is walking, talking and full of zest, independence and cuteness. With this well rounded diet and comfort with cow's milk, I felt that this might be the right time to start weaning Livia. We were both showing signs of readiness...I am working and we really only nurse about 4 times a day, unless I'm off, in which case we nurse whenever. She has started biting me hard with her little teeth, playing around while nursing such as doing assorted acrobatics, spinning, flipping around and generally not focusing on the bosum when we are at task. I tried to gradually wean her by removing daytime feedings and leaving it to nights when she is still waking to nurse. I'm pretty confident she is on to me as today she would nap, but only if hooked to my nipple, otherwise it was a crying fit and she was already clearly over-tired! Then when I went to put her to bed, she would wake, crying, everytime I tried to remove the sleeping child from my bosum, all resulting in 3 hours(!!) of more or less forced nursing. My left breast is killing me between sudden engorgement, teeth and pressure. I'm tired as I've yet to sleep through the night since before her birth. I'm looking for ANY advice you can offer folks. I'm a mother on the brink! Thanks in advance...

Hello, Today I went to a breastfeeding clinic at the hospital and the appointment was really informative. I forgot to ask a few questions though, one being about dummies. Is it okay to give your baby a dummy whilst breastfeeding??? I know I did with Ethan, but I only fed him for three weeks. My second child, which I fed six months, wouldn't have a dummy or expressed milk at all. Any help would be appreciated. I really want it to work this time. Love Tanya xo.

And mothering is something that our culture does not value enough to support.

 

 Ricki Lake & The Business of Being Born has some exciting announcements - a new site to check out & join, mybestbirth.com, for pregnant women, moms, parents & birth professionals, a new book in stores now, "Your Best Birth" and the online rental of "The Business of Being Born" now available at thebusinessofbeingborn.com. If you know someone who is pregnant, they will want to know about this!

Well Taylor is nearly 6 weeks old and is doing really well being breastfed. There are a few issues like latenight when he is hungry and has fed on and off for the last several hours and I have no milk left due to the fact that my body can't produce it fast enough, so end up sitting up til 2 or 3 am in the morning tryin to work out ways to put hom to sleep. But other than that everything is going well he is putting on dbl of what they expect a baby to put on each week. He is already over 5kg's. He is a generally happy healthy little boy.

My older boy Damian absolutely adore's him but just doesn't like it when I am feeding Taylor as he doesn't get as much attention at these times. But slowly he is learning that while I am feeding he can go off and do his own thing in his playroom which is good, there is no danger in there and plenty of toys.

Hope everyone else is doing well

Cheers Queenie

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Hello everyone,

I'm 25 weeks pregnant and am hoping to breastfeed longer than I managed to last time.  I planned on feeding Ethan for at least six months but unfortunately about 2 and a half weeks into feeding him, I ended up getting sore on one side and by the time I realized that the problem was mastitis, it was too late.  I was in way too much pain and had already decided to put Ethan onto the bottle because he was stressed out and so was I and it wasn't worth us both being miserable over it.

I breastfed my second child for six months and although he was a real demand feeder, I never found the actual breastfeeding part difficult.  It just happened naturally and I only weaned him because he got very badly ill with gastro and because he'd left it so long to feed, my breasts were very sore so I thought weaning would be the best thing as six months was a good run and I wasn't expecting to be able to feed him at all after my first child wouldn't.

Anyone who has any advice or suggestions for me for breastfeeding, I'd be very grateful.

Tanya.

One of my friends has a son (9 months I think) who has bad eczema which seems to be triggered by wheat and dairy. Consequently she has been advised to keep him off all those products til 12 months. She is still breast feeding him, and as he doesnt much like food that is just as well IMO!

But now she has been to a homeopath who has told her SHE is also allergic to these products and has told her she must stop breastfeeding so she can detox as this would be bad for her son, and that she must instead move him onto goats milk (not soya etc) as it is better nutritionally. However, having guzzled his first bottle of goats milk down he had a bit of a reaction to it. She is currently reducing his breast feeds with a view to stopping feeding as advised and will try the goats milk again in a few days.

I bit my tongue a bit this morning as my instinct said that breast milk is still best for him and she should not stop on the say so of one expert on allergies (who probably knows very little about breast feeding). Before I launch myself carefully into this mine field, does anyone else have any experience of this, or any opinions, or good websites, please?

the NEW ABA Breastfeeding Helpline is 1800 686 2 686, or 1800 mum 2 mum :)

1800 mum 2 mum delivers breastfeeding advice, mum to mum

Australia's first 24-hour toll-free helpline for breastfeeding mothers was officially launched on Friday March 20.

1800 mum 2 mum (1800 686 2 686) is run by the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) and utilises the real-life experience of over 200 trained volunteer counsellors each week who help other mums with issues including the early days with a new baby, expressing and storing milk, weaning, supply and what to do when baby simply says no.

"This is such an important resource for breastfeeding mothers," says Australian Breastfeeding Association president Querida David.

"Mothers everywhere can call one toll-free number for mum-to-mum support and information from trained breastfeeding counsellors. That's good news for mothers, babies, dads and families. Getting the right help at the right time is important for breastfed babies and their mums. The Australian Breastfeeding Association's free breastfeeding helpline 1800 mum 2 mum delivers that help whenever mothers need it."

The 1800 mum 2 mum number replaces 13 different numbers that operated in different states, with different levels of service. It is proving a word-of-mouth hit even before its official launch, averaging 1214 calls per week in February, which were answered by an average of 214 volunteer counsellors each week.

Each volunteer counsellor has completed 400 hours of training and has a Certificate IV in Breastfeeding Education or equivalent. The service is available to everyone, from mothers and fathers to nurses and other health care professionals, whether ABA members or not.

The major upgrade of the ABA Breastfeeding Helpline is possible through funding from the Federal Government under the Support Breastfeeding Mums initiative.

About ABA: Australian Breastfeeding Association is a voluntary organisation established in 1964 to encourage and support mothers who wish to breastfeed their babies. There are 300 ABA groups nationwide with over 17,000 members. www.breastfeeding.asn.au

I am finding that breastfeeding this time around is much easier, I am loving it. My milk supply is plenty, and it is comfortable and I am feeling happier that I am able to breastfeed properly this time around.

After breastfeeding 3 bubs now, I thought I'd have the hang of it! But no! I guess every bub is different.

My daughter Maddie is about 3 months now and recently she has started bringing up a quite a bit of her feeds. She was fine up until last week.

All of a sudden she started getting fussy (not breastfeeding very well at times) and bringing up her feeds and I was wondering if this had something to do with what I'm eating.

Could it be that certain foods I'm eating cause this fussiness? What sort of foods have other people avoided while breastfeeding? I'm thinking it might be onion, as after I ate that, she brought up a lot of her feeds the next day. Should I just go on a bland diet and see how I go? I have also been very stressed lately and wondering if she can feel it.

I have a two and a half year old, Colin, and an eight week old, Trevor. Their nursing styles are so different. I never thought breastfeeding would vary so much from child to child.  Colin used nursing for comfort as well as nurishment.  He would never turn down the boob. He would suck for 40 minutes at a time every two hours.  He also breastfed until about 19 months.  I received too much criticism for that, but he turned into a well adjusted, crazy two year old. I should confess... Colin would yell the word boob when he wanted it.  If a child can ask for it by name, he's too old, was the opinion of my critics. 

Trevor gets right to the point. He nurses on both sides in 15 minutes, sometimes quicker than that. He also only wants to nurse on his own terms, only when he's hungry. He sucks for comfort, but he prefers his hand or sometimes a pacifier. I wonder if he will wean sooner when he starts eating "real" food. We'll just have to find out. I love breastfeeding, the closeness along with the health and convenience factors. I'll just see what Trevor wants to do. He's the boob boss now. I might teach him a less obvious word for it though. 

One Million Campaign - sign the petition.

 

NO MORE MILK SCANDALS
SUPPORT WOMEN TO BREASTFEED
Thousands of babies fell seriously ill in China because the milk they drank was contaminated with melamine. Some even died. These babies were not breastfed because

• baby milk companies convinced parents that their products were better than breastmilk
• women lacked adequate support to breastfeed their babies at the work place
• women lacked correct information about infant feeding

Growing evidence points out how vital breastfeeding is to infant survival with health. Women are being forced to stop breastfeeding and give their babies infant milk powders because of lack of facilities and support to women to breastfeed and increasing commercial interference in infant feeding.

Potential disasters are waiting to happen across the world.

Salma  feeds starving baby

Salma Hayek= While on a UNICEF trip to Sierra Leone she visited several areas hit with starvation. One case in particular touched Salma’s heart. A mother was desperate to feed her starving baby. However, starved mother had no milk. Hayek took the baby and nursed him. This morning on the Today Show she confirmed this story as fact.

 

Hey guys,

I am due to have my 2nd son in february, I breastfed Damian for about 2 weeks but due to not attaching properly I had to stop as he was always hungry. I am hoping that this time around I will be able to breastfeed for at least 6 months, I hope to get alot more support this time round from my community health centre and my midwife.

Cheers Queenie

xoxoxxoxoxoxoox

hey there

tobias is 14 months now and because he puts himself to sleep in his bed now we have stopped night feeds and normally i feed him in my bed first thing of a morning or at nap times but he is faaaaar to busy right now to remember lol

so should i just let him self wean now? if i offer him the breast he will take it and we can keep it going for a bit longer and if i dont for much longer my milk will just dry up and we will be done with feeding forever.

chloe self weaned at this age she did the same thing im just wondering if i should keep the occassional feed for nutrition and snuggles or follow his cues and stop?

Breast taboo

"Well, we do have a peculiar obsession with breasts in this culture. A lot of people think it's just the human nature to be fascinated with breasts but in many cultures, breasts aren't sexual at all. I interviewed a young anthropologist working with women in Mali, in a country in Africa where women go around with bare breasts. They're always feeding their babies. And when she told them that in our culture men are fascinated with breasts there was an instant of shock. The women burst out laughing. They laughed so hard, they fell on the floor. They said, "You mean, men act like babies?" 

Carolyn Latteier, the author of Breasts, The Women's Perspective on an American Obsession, in a TV program "All about breasts".

When Daniel was about a month old I found I had too much milk, he was feeding well but I still had a couple of ounces left when I expressed each night.  During a visit from mother in law she said she used to donate to the hospital for it to be used in SCBUs, what a great idea!  I had a think about it and the following week phoned Cheltenham's SCBU and found that they don't accept milk direct, it comes from the milk banks across the country.

I had a look on the net and found our nearest is Birmigham, so I'm now registered as a milk donor and it is a nice thought that I can help babies in special care, James was in SCBU for a week with a chest infection so any way I can help I will!

Ju xx

Hi!  I'm a breastfeeding mum to Daniel, almost 4 months and fed my other son James until January this year whenhe turned 2 and also when I found I was expecting again.  I had decided when James was about a year old I'd stop at 2 years after a chat with a friends mum who stopped feeding them at 2 yr old and I thought this sounds like a good idea and it was, he stopped so easily and just started drinking more of cows milk instead.  I also stopped so that he wouldn't be upset when Daniel started and to some extent that has worked even though he does ask for titty now and again!  He has managed it once since but took me by surprise one morning while I was still in bed.

Ju xx