Bfing, Katrina to be discussed on radio Friday

[Janice in Canada]

Passing along this information.
Janice.


Monique Sims, MPH, RD, CLE, a doctoral student at UC Berkeley, will
discuss breastfeeding among African-Americans in the light of Hurricane
Katrina on Friday, Sep 16th, at 12:06-12:50 pm Pacific time. Tune in to
www.kvmr.org to hear Monique Sims, whose dissertation is on
African-American breastfeeding.

Arly Helm, MS, IBCLC

P.S. If you haven't tried web radio before, you may wish to tune in a
few minutes early to find out which method on the www.kvmr.org website
works best for you.

[Sarah]

Thanks for the heads up Janice. Even with my very slow dialup connection I can pick up the live stream with real audio (pshew!) Now I just have to figure out the time change and remember to tune in!

[MamaTT]

Anyone catch this? How was it?

[Sarah]

Well- my computer crashed and locked right at the hour- so I had to re-boot and by the time I was online again I had missed all the mention of disaster preparedness... so I don't know what got said about that. The rest of it was an overview of several breastfeeding issues mostly what impacts initiation rate- especially among low income moms and why breastfeeding is especially important in that population. They bragged on CA already having exceeded the Healthy Family goals for breastffeding although they hope to continue to improve... they also bragged on CA's progressive laws for accomidating BF in the workplace either by pumping or nursing breaks... but confessed that although the law is in place- many employers are still slow on the uptake and need encouragement (or punishment through fines) to comply.

Another topic that was hit upon was the history of the WIC program and the problems in the beginning which may still linger with the assumption that WIC promotes formula because they supply it to low income moms. It was left as a subject needing further study.

Several aspects of the conversation were really focused on topics (allegedly) specific to African American moms- one women reported that black mothers were once THE nursing moms... who not only nursed their own kids and their relatives kids... but also were wet nurses for white slave owners... then in a very short time- a one generation gap in the chain of matriarchal knowledge- and the knowledge of breastfeeding and it's management was erased from the population and they are struggling to regain it.... well- that is hardly a black issue- women of all races have been harmed by what their mother's generation simply does not have to offer them in terms of breastfeeding knowledge.

There was a bit of a troubling connection between the subject of African American moms... and low income moms... as if they may be synonomous (which they are not) So it made it a little confusing when they were keeping their subject matter focused to those two groups- weather they meant that this need did not apply to low income white moms... or high income black moms- that's a bit of a nitpick- I'd like to hear from more people who heard it how it sounded to them. I think the last thing that people want to hear is experts speaking about them in a patronizing way... which I'm not sure they did... just that I don't know why all the good news was only being projected toward that target- when it applies to al moms.

One very good point which was made about the income disparity in terms of BF was the fact that the wealthier women were usually more able to financially take longer maternity leaves and establish their breastfeeding... the moms who were needing to go right back to work frequently had not had the time to get in the groove and settle with their nursling.

Love Sarah

[bluegreenturtle]

Sorry I missed this...

[JesseMomme]

Was ths recorded or is there a transcript?

[Janice in Canada]

Sarah, thanks for the recap. I missed it myself.

Re: transcripts. I don't think so.

Arly, the IBCLC who gave notice of this event, is a volunteer with that radio station, and they have done a few bfing shows, - one on the National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign, IIRC.
I think they have made availabe CD's of certain broadcasts for purchase, I'll let you know if they do so with this one.

Janice