Search Results for: a winning goal

a winning goal

I would feel a little remiss were I to not make mention this year of World Breastfeeding Week (WBW). In previous years I have always made a point to do so. But, it is late. I should already be in bed. Besides, I have to get to work early tomorrow in order to partake in a webinar that is celebrating the week and its important mission. So, I will be brief.

Perhaps after tomorrow’s webinar, I will have something more inspiring or informational to offer with a larger perspective. Tonight, I sit quietly with only my personal experience–the one that reminds me that twenty-six years ago at this very time I was deeply in labor, nestled in my midwife’s quiet birthing room in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. On the other side of midnight, in the dark of night of the day of my own birthday, my son would make his way into the world. Our breastfeeding relationship would begin immediately thereafter.

But, during that time, the practice of breastfeeding on a larger global scale was diminishing with serious consequences for maternal and child health, with societal and environmental implications as well. In 1981, the World Health Assembly adopted the International Code of the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, to remediate the malnutrition suffered by infants and young children due to the inappropriate marketing of commercial formula. And, then in 1990, exactly two years after my own bond was formed in connection with the dying art of breastfeeding, the Innocenti Declaration was signed by government policymakers, WHO, UNICEF and other organizations to protect, promote and support breastfeeding. It designated the first week of August as World Breastfeeding Week.

Twenty-four years later, though there have been significant gains made in reversing the declining trend, there is still work to be done. There are also newer nutritional impacts of breastfeeding being investigated as we begin to better understand the myriad functions of the gut microbiome.

This year’s WBW slogan is Breastfeeding: A Winning Goal for Life. I suppose it relates to this year’s Football World Cup. Could that be? That’s a little funny to me because my son has been a soccer player and is a devoted fan of the sport. Though no longer on the field much, he is hoping to be working in the field of professional soccer someday. May I also parenthetically add, that throughout and since the World Cup games, I’ve noticed that I have had an almost daily blog reader from Brazil–so apparently not everyone in the country was focused on the sport. A special hello to that reader(s).

The objectives of WBW 2014 are strongly linked to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), set by governments and the United Nations to fight poverty and promote healthy and sustainable development in a comprehensive way by 2015. A description of how breastfeeding is linked to the MDGs can be found here. The connections are quite profound.

I am interested to see what I will learn in the course of tomorrow’s session. I will let you know if there is anything particularly interesting. In the meantime, please take a moment if you will and have a look at these powerful photos. They will say much more than my usual thousand words.

Thank you for listening, sharing, following and supporting my writing. Please subscribe in the sidebar to receive notice of new posts. Comments and greetings always welcome.

In health, Elyn

P.S. The webinar session was yesterday. It was sponsored by the SUNY School of Public Health and entitled, International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and Promoting and Supporting Exclusive Breastfeeding. I applaud the school’s long term commitment to this topic and recommend the session highly. I believe it will be available soon for viewing online. Dr. Ruth Lawrence, an international breastfeeding authority, and author of Breastfeeding: A Guide for the Medical Profession, whose pioneering work and advocacy for breastfeeding dates back to the 1950s, is on the panel.

The webinar described some examples of successful applications as well as egregious violations of the International Code of Marketing, and also shared some exciting outcomes in regard to increasing initiation and exclusivity of breastfeeding in some NYC hospitals and in the Vermont WIC Program due to some dedicated efforts. It also discussed commerciogenic malnutrition— in this context, referring to the marketing of breastmilk substitutes and its impacts on babies, but I may ponder some wider implications as well.

Thank you for listening, sharing, following and supporting my writing. Please subscribe in the sidebar to receive notice of new posts. Comments and greetings always welcome.

In health, Elyn

Today’s My Plate is the beautiful watermelon cake prepared for me by my office “birthday angel”.

Related Recipe: Watermelon Fruit Cake

Cathy’s My Plate

‘

My Plate Haiku

Hearts are not just reserved for romance

Every living thing

Is in love.

by Kat

first food

Aug8

Yesterday, while I was leaving work, my friends wished me a nice weekend, acknowledging that I was taking today off in honor of my birthday. Happy Birthday they chimed while sweetly presenting me with a sunflower plant. As I have for the past twenty-seven years when asked about birthday plans, I am apt to explain that it is also my son’s birthday. Though my day’s celebration is no longer actively intertwined with his as it was when he was young, I cannot extricate my birth from his.

When I mentioned this, Josie commented on how for every parent, the birthday (or receiving day) of their first child marks their own re-birth as well, no matter the confluence of dates. It is the day that changes profoundly everything that may have preceded it. This is quite true. Cathy added that she birthed her first child exactly at the moment Mount St. Helena’s volcano erupted in 1980! While distanced by an entire continent, for her the event was no less spectacular.

Midsummer Night’s Dream

Still, I remain as tickled and surprised by my calendrical coincidence of blazing glory incarnation as I was the mid-summer night it occurred. And, as I have mentioned in previous posts, I enjoy that the date I first brought babe to breast coincides with World Breastfeeding Week/Breastfeeding Awareness Month. As a matter with so many implications for health, nutrition, and societal well being, and one rife with dilemmas, I try to bring attention to this important activism each year. Thanks to Mary Ellen, here’s a nice little video from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation about Growing a First Food Movement Naturally that helps give perspective to the story of infant feeding.

This year’s theme for World Breastfeeding Week is Breastfeeding and Work: Let’s Make it Work. Its focus is on furthering support for nursing women working in formal, non-formal or home settings so as they can continue to breastfeed their babies and maintain their right to breastfeed. The need to return to work–exacerbated by the lack of mandated and satisfactory maternity leave policies–is one of the main factors why women stop nursing. The initiatives associated with this year’s campaign highlight and advocate for improved national and state labor laws and practices; employer awareness and compliance with existing laws; and ways to create clean, comfortable, private and safe areas for women to nurse or to express breast milk in the workplace.

It is encouraging to witness that some real strides are being made. Government agencies, global health organizations, national groups, and local coalitions have been working hard so that women do not have to stop nursing their babies in order to keep food on the table for themselves and their families. Lactation spaces are becoming available in various public and private settings. Closets and storage areas in offices, factory buildings, schools, and daycare centers are being transformed into comfy lactation rooms; and creative and caring entrepreneurs are designing nursing pods for women working, recreating, or relaxing in various field and outdoor settings.

In the fall of 2013, I attended a Nets basketball game at the then newly anointed and crazily crowded Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Navigating the many corridors along with throngs of people was not easy. Having made it up to our seats in the nosebleed section, the female contingent of my party had to then descend back down a few levels to find a bathroom. Literally relieved to find the facilities, we were also quite surprised to find a door marked ‘lactation room’. A burly guard stood by the entrance. Our supportive interest piqued, we asked him about the room. As though protecting a highly paid all-star, he tersely informed us that there was someone in there. Though I probably wouldn’t bring my baby to such a noisy environment–unless it was a nursing toddles or if a family member was playing in the game or singing the national anthem–but if I did, I’d be nursing in my own seat, jumbotron cameras and all. But, for those mamas and babies who deserve a modicum of privacy and quiet dining, having such an option in such an incongruous setting is quite incredible. I wonder who there is to thank for that.

My own awareness of the many aspects of this year’s Let’s Make It Work campaign was heightened yesterday as well, when I was fortunate, as in previous years, to watch SUNY Albany’s School of Public Health/New York State Department of Health’s Bureau of Supplemental Foods annual webcast presentation of Breastfeeding Grand Rounds. This was, as always, an excellent program and it highlighted many great examples of breastfeeding-friendly environments. Though it left me feeling inspired, it also reminded me how amazing women are and how damn hard they work.

Stories and images of women shlepping breast pumps and accessories to work, utilizing break and lunchtime to sit in secluded rooms listening to the whir of mechanical pumps, rushing into daycare centers in the middle of the workday to nurse a baby, sequestering into hidden spaces to feed their young, and negotiating with employers individually for their own rights–god bless them all.

My mixed reaction to the situation also was evident as I attempted to find an image for my new Lifeseeds Nutrition Instagram post to honor the week and encountered some difficulties. The breastfeeding photos I most easily found depicted either beatific, blissed-out industrialized world mothers posed in pristine settings or somber-faced traditional world mothers huddled in sparse environments. Though I appreciate the beauty of both, neither captured what I was looking for– a reflection of how working mothers often feel in our modern society–weary from its many demands and yet comforted in the respite of feeding their child. I hope the one I finally chose came close.

As for my birthday, I wished really only for a little quiet me time. Though no longer tending daily to my children’s needs, with one child still in college I am still a working mom. The memories of running from babysitter to job to various activities with a baby in tow are still pretty fresh and my plate continues to feel pretty full. Thankfully, I got what I wished for. It is a perfect sunny day and my little village is exquisitely tranquil. My front porch cradles me, and I have some time to write. Soon I will have the phone conversation with my son where we simultaneously say, Happy Birthday.

Until then, wishing all the hard-working mommas, and all who support them, good nourishment of both body and soul.

Thank you for listening, sharing, following and supporting my writing. Please subscribe in the sidebar to receive notice of new posts. Comments and greetings always welcome.

In health, Elyn

Momma’s My Plate

My Plate Haiku

Hard toiling mamas

Hear their hungry babies cry

Breastfeeding and work–let’s make it work

by Elyn

oh mother

Aug5

I was hoping not to have to work today. It is Sunday and I promised myself a little repose. So there I was actually lounging on the couch this morning when the news of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s announcement of the New York City Health Department’s Latch on NYC breastfeeding initiative filtered into my airspace from an NPR podcast.

breastfeeding (Photo credit: sdminor81)

Clearly, the launch of this voluntary program for New York City’s hospitals was timed to coincide with World Breastfeeding Week. The story started off nicely enough with a rational presentation of the benefits of breastfeeding and informed that 27 out of 40 New York City hospitals have already signed on to the recommended policy. But, it then whacked me with a tirade of the backlash (and responses) to the initiative–bemoaning that women do not want to have their parenting decisions enforced, especially by a man–and specifically not by health policy promoting Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

I rolled over and groaned into the cushions. My hopes for a relaxing day were shattered. I intended to glue my attention to the Olympics–one of the rare times I surrender to watching TV– but this report was going to interfere. Having discussed the topic of breastfeeding previously, I had no choice but to respond to this in a timely manner. Water polo and volleyball could wait, but this must be addressed before track and field and gymnastics takes to the screen.

In brief, Mayor Bloomberg did not make up these policies, and in fact, they are not mandated. These are recommendations consistent with the guidelines of the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative. Other larger jurisdictions have already implemented these policies. The intention is not to take choice away from women or to impound life-giving nourishment. It will not send women back into the kitchen chained to the stove with babes pulling on the teat as some editorials that I read implied.

Instead, it is a long-overdue remediation of a situation that separated the human species from their species-specific milk and compromised in both subtle and profound ways the health of many moms and babes. The superiority of human milk, as compared to artificial milk or formula, for human babies is not disputed and its immuno-protective properties are well established. There are many other benefits as well of mother’s milk as a substance and breastfeeding as a method.

What is not as well-known is that formula companies have participated in the disruption of this mother and child feeding relationship for many years and that this has promoted a cultural ignorance about the benefits of breast milk and a communal lack of wisdom regarding supporting women in this most natural of human behaviors. Big corporations have been the beneficiaries of immeasurable profits by influencing infant feeding using extreme measures by literally getting invited right into the hospital.

Pregnant women are wooed with coupons, samples, and free merchandise. New moms are given goodie bags with loyalty promoting formula brands. What formula a baby is started on has nothing to do with the baby or the doctor, but by whatever company got their hands on those tiny sucking lips first. Where else does this marketing intrusion occur so blatantly in matters related to health?

Women’s efforts to nurse have been sabotaged in hospitals for decades by babies being given sugar-water or formula without consent. Birth attendants including doctors and nurses not educated in lactation have also impeded the mother’s success at nursing. The result is a society that for decades has been led to believe that nursing is difficult, inconvenient and an impediment to maternal freedom. What has created barriers for mothers choosing to nurse is not nursing, but a lack of education, limited support, pathetic maternity leave policies, lack of comfortable places for nursing and pumping and a prudish culture that has turned to feed at the breast into a lascivious act aggravated by laws that even make nursing in public illegal in some places.

If you wish to discuss enslaving factors as regards women’s choices, this is what people should be concerned with–not the new policies. Of course, there will be some situations where babies will require formula, and there will be women who will choose formula feeding for a multitude of reasons. But, I am pretty sure the locked cabinet that the policy suggests will not be in the hospital basement by the janitors’ supplies and that women won’t be found dragging their IV poles down the hall in desperate search of a contraband formula to sate their starving babies. And, I strongly doubt that nursing staff will be utilizing methods of intimidation to enforce breastfeeding.

This is just an opportunity to fully educate and inform and to take the profits out of our babies’ bellies. It is one of a long series of efforts by many health care professionals to enhance the health of women and children in both the short and long-term. This is not rocket science nor is it evidence of a nanny state. If we as mothers have to choose our battles–this is not the one to wage.

Thank you for listening, sharing, following and supporting my writing. Please subscribe in the sidebar to receive notice of new posts. Comments and greetings always welcome.

In health, Elyn

Cathy’s My Plate

My Plate Haiku

Blueberry bushes

Three children with empty pails

Pluck, pluck, crunch, exhale.

by Michael

breast feeding redux

Apr14

Poster advertisement for Nestle's Milk by Théo...

Image via Wikipedia

So, here is what happened. Last week I wrote about breastfeeding. On one level I was addressing the possible connection between most babies’ first food and the increased incidence of weight issues in children. On another, I was speaking to the very low rates of breastfeeding in this country and the implications of that as well.

Right after I posted, my friend who is a wonderful adoptive new father responded that breastfeeding was not a viable option for his baby. I felt bad. I know a lot of adoptive parents. And, having worked in maternal and child health for many years, I know there are some real situations that make breastfeeding not possible for some. There are many women who have really tried but for different reasons have not been able to nurse. I hope I did not appear insensitive. As a health counselor, I am very sympathetic to one’s personal experience– but I also know that our low breastfeeding rates are not caused by these exceptional types of cases.

In my discussion, I had decided to not make apologies or to outline the contraindications to nursing in the limited words I afford my writings. Most materials related to breastfeeding already do so. I had wanted to challenge the oft-repeated message that breastfeeding is challenging, but mainly I wanted to bring the topic of breastfeeding to the table. As a nutritionist, I consider breast milk a quintessential component of the human diet. Once I did, I thought I was ready to move on–but as I lingered in the post post aftermath and received some thoughtful responses, I considered that how we feed our babies is a way too overlooked issue in this huge conversation about food, culture, and weight. Breastfeeding is discussed in breastfeeding circles among women who are nursing. Beyond that, not many people ever think about this very important topic–even some parents to be. Most people in our culture have never really seen a baby nursing at the breast. I am highly attuned to watching for nursing babies–and I rarely get a sighting (except for my multi-cultural workplace that offers pre and postnatal care.)

I worry about what a world would look like that really no longer knew how to instinctually nurse its young. So, during the past week, I thought a lot about recent natural disasters where water and food supplies are not available–what happened to the formula-fed babies in the wake of Hurricane Katrina; I considered the tragedy of the melamine-tainted formula in China that affected 300,000 babies; I wondered about the plastics that every formula feed involves through either bottle or artificial nipple; and, I lingered on antibiotic resistance and even genetic modification of formula. As I was doing all this a few things happened.

Firstly, quite coincidentally, I came upon an article called Cows Genetically Modified to Produce Human Milk. Writer Erika Nicole Kendall in her blog, the Black Girl’s Guide to Weight Loss does not seem to miss much regarding our confusing cultural cuisine–and one need be neither black, young, female or overweight to appreciate the topics she very thoughtfully explores and exposes. Here, she tells about a recent exhibition in China where technical achievements are touted as part of the country’s five-year plan. Fascinatingly, in ancient China, emperors and empresses drank human milk throughout their lives. Apparently, presented at the exhibition were a herd of cows that have been genetically modified to produce human milk–which apparently contains the anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory agents and the hormones and digestive enzymes particular to the real stuff. The milk purportedly will preserve and improve the immune systems and central nervous systems of children and will address decreasing breastfeeding rates in that country. Must I explain the irony here? http://blackgirlsguidetoweightloss.com/news-feed/cows-genetically-modified-to-produce-human-milk/

Then, mon cher French ami who is always on topic in spite of mothering three young children–who she nursed in succession–sent me an article on breastfeeding in France. I learned that France has the lowest breastfeeding rate in the Western world. Mon Dieu. I was shocked and rather nauseated by the story. The nationwide gist is that breasts are for your husband–not your baby. French doctors apparently are in collusion with this imperative of preserving the sexual function of its countrywomen rather than supporting their maternal inclinations. Accompanying comments mocked those who promote breastfeeding as the breast police. Really? Does fighting tobacco advertising and helping people to quit smoking make one the lung police? http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/01/france-breast-breastfed-baby-death

And, lastly, just Tuesday night, I watched the first episode of Jamie Oliver‘s second season of the Food Revolution. As he was stymied by the Los Angeles City School District to get into their schools for filming, he invited the public to bring him samples of the foods that the kids are being served there. In the opening scene, he is shown surrounded by a group of people who are presenting to him all types of horrific-looking junk that is splayed out on a table. A woman in the group is carrying a few month old beautiful baby girl. He reaches for the baby who gently accepts his arms. He reminds us how totally pure and perfect our babies come into this life. Seeing this gorgeous little being surrounded by this landscape of low-quality food was a powerful juxtaposition–it is the way I also see the situation.

Before school food, infant formula is the ingredient template that constitutes most of a child’s diet for most of its first year. Aside from added vitamins and minerals, the following are what milk and soy formulas are made of in some variation: non-fat milk, lactose, vegetable oil, whey protein, high oleic safflower oil, soy oil, corn syrup solids, soy protein isolate, sugar, and coconut oil. Interestingly, as most formulas now try to mimic the beneficial lipid profile naturally found in breastmilk–mortierella alpina oil and crythecodimium coluni oil are what are used to make them closer than ever to breast milk.

So, I decided, it was a worthwhile effort to pursue this conversation a little more–in the name of restoring, reviving, encouraging a resurgence–a redux of what I consider to be our natural birthright. The right of babies under most circumstances to be sustained on the foodstuff designed for their biology, presented in a form supportive of their neurological wiring and physiologically and hormonally consistent with that of the other member of the feeding dyad–their mother. The rest of the population may benefit as well–even the men.

And, in case some shared wisdom on this motherly art is sought, please check out this very thorough Breastfeeding Tips and Guide lovingly prepared by Sara Spencer. It contains some nice videos including a great one on feeding twins.

I am just wondering, were you breastfed?

Thank you for listening, sharing, following and supporting my writing. Please subscribe in the sidebar to receive notice of new posts. Comments and greetings always welcome.

In health, Elyn

blessed feeding

Apr5

Image via Wikipedia

It was one of those mornings. One minute I am simply getting dressed for work, the next I am hopping around with only one leg in my tights, trying to find pen and paper to grab what I can from another nutrition-related radio story. On that particular day, it was an NPR story entitled, Some Baby Formulas May Cause Faster Weight Gain.

The story which ran on January 24, 2011, starts out by saying that breastfeeding can be challenging, so most babies are on formula. It was about a small study comparing cow’s milk formula and predigested protein formulas– which are very expensive and used mainly for babies with significant digestive issues including cow’s milk allergies. The research suggested that at 7 months of age, the cow’s milk formula babies weighed two pounds more than breastfed and predigested formula babies. The study only observed that the babies drinking the cow’s milk formula took a longer time to be satiated and therefore drank more. There was no explanation given for this.

Interviewed for the story was Dr. Nicholas Stettler, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. He starts out by saying that formulas have been proven safe and effective, and if infants like them and eat them, they’ll maintain their health and weight. He then goes on to say that babies who gain too much weight in the first weeks and months of life are 5 times more prone to obesity and its inherent health risks by age 20–and that formula babies often gain too much. He concludes by advising that, “Parents should work closely with their pediatricians to make sure their babies don’t gain too much or too little. In this case, average is best.”

All in all, it wasn’t worth the hopping. None of this was exactly news to me and if anything I was surprised at the limited analysis of the results. However, it touched on an issue that I feel quite strongly about–the dismal state of affairs regarding breastfeeding in this country and its many implications.

Ironically, on January 20th, just four days before, Surgeon General Regina Benjamin announced the “Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding“. Outlined clearly in the announcement and its accompanying report are the many benefits of breastfeeding and the attendant health risks of not doing so. Clearly known in the medical and nursing community is that there are many physical and emotional benefits for both nursing moms and their babies and that babies who are not breastfed are at increased risk for diarrhea, ear infections, more serious lower respiratory infections, SIDS, childhood leukemias, asthma, diabetes, and obesity. Lactation experts and women who do breastfeed understand that human milk is species-specific for human babies, and its composition perfectly designed for proper and progressive growth. Mother’s milk changes composition during each feeding as well due to differences in the foremilk and hindmilk and naturally provides nutritional, immunological and satiety factors.

In the introduction to the report, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius writes, “For much of the last century, America’s mothers were given poor advice and were discouraged from breastfeeding to the point that breastfeeding became an unusual choice in this country.” I appreciated the admission. Tucked in the report amongst the many reasons for our pathetically low breastfeeding rates was this paragraph: “A recent survey of pediatricians showed that many believe the benefits of breastfeeding don’t outweigh the challenges that may be associated with it and report various reasons to recommend against it.”

This seems pretty shocking given the following. Comparing formula-fed babies to those who were breastfed exclusively for four months, the rates of hospitalization for lower respiratory tract infections are 250% greater; for GI infections including diarrhea are 178% greater; and, for necrotizing enterocolitis in premature babies 138% greater for the formula-fed babies. The economic impact of just these three illnesses that breastfeeding can prevent, costs this country 3.6 billion dollars per year. In cultures where babies have unlimited access to the breast and constant maternal contact, the prevalence of psycho and sociopathic behaviors are very low. What is the economic cost of those disorders?

Though the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life, this recommendation does not translate into proper education, promotion, and support. Hindering the promotion of breastfeeding in this country is the perpetuation of the idea that the decision to breastfeed is a personal one and we should not make women feel guilty for not breastfeeding. Also, as a non-breastfeeding society for a few generations now, the cultural belief system is that most babies are raised on formula and they are fine. Additionally, like nutrition, obstetricians, and pediatricians– who are best poised to promote this clearly biologically superior milk–may not receive much training on breastfeeding and there is an awkwardness about women and breasts–even in the medical community.

The moment that baby opens its little mouth and receives artificial milk, it is unwittingly committed to a different path than its breastfed nursery mate. Immediately, that baby becomes a consumer of a highly and often deceitfully marketed corporate product; is more vulnerable to various illnesses and diseases with short or long term health implications; compromises its innate ability to self regulate feedings, and now in this weighted world, must work with its pediatrician to strive for average.

The Health Center where I work serves a large and diverse international clientele. I feel very fortunate to encounter daily a multi-cultural perspective. Last week, as I was walking past the main waiting area, two young women were nursing their babies. One woman was Mexican and the other was Burmese. This was not shy, covered up nursing. Both, were one breast exposed unabashedly doing what women have been doing for thousands and thousands of years. Confidently nourishing their young. How challenging can it be?

Thank you for listening, sharing, following and supporting my writing. Please subscribe in the sidebar to receive notice of new posts. Comments and greetings always welcome.

In health, Elyn

the nutritionist's dilemma

a nutritionist's musings on the realities of eaters and eating

Search Results for: a winning goal

a winning goal

first food

oh mother

breast feeding redux

blessed feeding