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news bulletins  april
2007 |
- Comprehensive Resource on Breastfeeding and Cystic Fibrosis
- Announcing The Breastfeeding Café Newsletter
- New Program Honors Earth Day and Organics
- Exclusive Breastfeeding Halves HIV Transmission Rate
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Comprehensive Resource on Breastfeeding and Cystic Fibrosis
CFNutrition4Life.com is dedicated to providing information, encouragement, and support to families whose children have been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis and who wish to breastfeed their babies. CFN4L's goal is that every woman who chooses to breastfeed her baby feels supported in that choice. If you plan to or are currently breastfeeding and finding it difficult to work with your medical team, you can use CFN4L's site to self-educate and more effectively discuss your wishes. As moms of children with cystic fibrosis, the founders of CFN4L understand the unique challenges you may face when caring for your child. They offer their hearts, their stories, and their experience to help support you along your journey into motherhood through nursing. The site also includes articles and studies on breastfeeding and cystic fibrosis, and discussion forums. They include moms like you who have babies with CF and also some La Leche League friends and leaders. And when the time comes to begin to make that journey towards solid foods, don't forget to check out CFN4L's nutrition support information as well. CFN4L hopes your baby can begin or continue their journey with you, being loved, cherished and nourished at your breast.
Announcing The Breastfeeding Café Newsletter
Whether you're expecting your first child, work with expectant or nursing moms, or are busy in the throes of parenting, The Breastfeeding Café Newsletter is an excellent resource for anyone who cares about childbirth, breastfeeding, and women's lives. The brainchild of Barbara Behrmann, Ph.D., author of The Breastfeeding Café: Mothers Share the Joys, Challenges & Secrets of Nursing, (University of Michigan, 2005) this quarterly newsletter contains news from the world of breastfeeding and childbirth, summaries of interesting research findings, mothers' breastfeeding stories, cultural politics, and much more—all from a woman-centered perspective.
"The amount of information available to parents today is overwhelming," Behrmann asserts. "Unfortunately, much of it is not typically about empowering parents and complex information gets reduced to simplistic messages that don't let parents make fully informed choices. Or it reflects cultural biases that go unquestioned." The Breastfeeding Café offers an accessible alternative.
To subscribe, click on the newsletter link on the home page of www.breastfeedingcafe.com, a large and growing website with articles and information for parents, health care providers, and anyone interested in knowing more about breastfeeding and the nursing relationship. Highlights include dozens of articles, a quiz to see how you really feel about breastfeeding, a test of your breastfeeding know-how, stories from moms, and a growing section about the relationship between childbirth and breastfeeding.
Behrmann, a sociologist by training, is a writer, national speaker, and breastfeeding advocate. Her writing has appeared in international journals, local and regional parenting publications, and on a host of websites, including Breastfeeding.com, Storknet.com, and KeepKidsHealthy.com. She a "parenting expert" on ClubMom.com and has a monthly column at RealSavvyMoms.com. Her critically-acclaimed book, The Breastfeeding Café, has been endorsed by individuals and organizations ranging from Dr. Christiane Northrup, Henci Goer, Penny Simkin, La Leche League, Citizens for Midwifery, Mothering Magazine, and more. Empowering women and families is her primary goal.
New Program Honors Earth Day and Organics
The benefits of organics are becoming increasingly evident. "It's difficult to measure the harmful effects of things like pesticides, herbicides and hormones used in the production of non-organic food today, but all have the potential to damage your health in a number of ways," says Dr. David Katz, MD, medical contributor to O Magazine and ABC News. "Anyone concerned about their own health or the environment has to be a supporter of organic food production methods and organic produce in general."
The importance of organic food for babies, infants and young children has also been well noted. "Children are developing organs to last a lifetime," says Alan Greene, MD, FAAP. "They're smaller, they have faster metabolisms, and, because their diets are less varied than an adult's, children are more vulnerable to developmental damage and health problems associated with exposure to concentrations of chemicals and pesticides in the non-organic food supply. By reducing exposure to toxic substances, organic products can help us raise healthy, strong children and protect our most treasured resources for the future."
Dr. Greene also notes that as early as 1993, a congressionally mandated study by the National Academy of Sciences expressed concern that existing methods of risk evaluation for pesticide exposure were failing children. More recently the Consumers Union and Environmental Working Group have released studies confirming that children are overexposed to pesticides even if the exposure is within current legal limits.
Go Organic! For Earth Day provides free money-saving coupons available at participating retailers throughout April, education on the benefits of organics, Earth Day events and a sweepstakes for an all-expense paid trip to The Crossings wellness spa in the scenic Hill Country of Austin, Texas. Delicious organic recipes, a fun "Test Your Organic Smarts" quiz, and a store finder to locate participating retailers can be found at www.organicearthday.org
Exclusive Breastfeeding Halves HIV Transmission Rate
HIV positive mothers who exclusively breastfeed for six months can dramatically reduce the risk of passing the virus on to their babies, according to new findings published in The Lancet. The data is so compelling that the World Health Organization (WHO) is overhauling their guidelines on HIV prevention for newborns.
Breastfeeding is universally recommended as optimal for infants—particularly in poor countries where water supplies may be tainted and a child can be exposed to potentially fatal diarrhea by taking formula, or to malnutrition if the replacement food is poor in vitamins and proteins. Yet the promotion of breastfeeding has long presented a major dilemma for AIDS policymakers: the post-natal risk of transmission via breastfeeding was previously evaluated as high—between 10 and 20 percent.
Those risk estimates, however, failed to distinguish between exclusive breastfeeding and mixed feeding. Hoosen Coovadia and other researchers from the Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, have conducted the first trial to address this disparity. They compared solely breastfed babies with those also given formula or solid foods.
After three months, the HIV infection rate among the exclusively breastfed group was actually found to be 4.04 percent. Among the mixed group, babies who received formula in addition to breastmilk were twice as likely to acquire HIV infection. And those who had solid food—typically porridge—were found to have 11 times the risk of infection compared with the breastfeeding-only group.
In addition, the death rate at three months among the exclusively breastfed babies was 6.1 percent; among children given replacement feeds, it was 15.1 percent.
According to Hoosen Coovadia, "We know that breastfeeding carries with it a risk of transmitting HIV infection from mother to child, but breastfeeding remains a key intervention to reduce mortality."
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