Babies have been worn in one form or another by their mother or another member of their “tribe” since the dawn of time.  Queen Victoria is often credited with having endorsed the use of prams which were vehicles to transport babies around without the need for them to be carried.  To this day, the use of carriages and strollers has become common place in the modern world. 

One of the main concepts of Conscious Breastfeeding is that babies need to be held and carried throughout much of their waking day.  This regulates their digestive rhythms and allows them to be in close, loving contact with their family and caretakers. 

Babies that lay around on their backs tend to have more issues with gas and reflux. They often fuss and cry to be picked up as if they intuitively knew that being carried will make them feel better and engage more fully with their world.

In her ground breaking work, The Continuum Concept, Jean Liedloff noted that babies of the Stone Age community she studied for 2-1/2 years were carried all the time for the first two years of their lives.  She believed that this led to a well-adjusted and happy society.  голые эротичные девочки

This week, November 12-18, 2008, marks the first International BabyWearing Week.  The theme has been Celebrating Babywearing. 

Motrin created a video to tap into this inaugural event clearly without any real awareness of the subject matter.  This ad is condescending and offensive in its tone.  It implies that mothers, or anyone who carries babies, are succumbing to fads and just making a fashion statement which will invariably cause them pain.  The person who wrote the copy completely missed the point of babywearing.   

In fact, a well chosen carrier puts far less strain on the adult body.  Babywearing allows the weight to be distributed evenly and is far less likely to cause injury and pain than lugging the large ticket items and equipment sold to convey babies up and down stairs in an urban environment. 

BabyWearing makes sense for so many reasons.  Now we can add one more…no need for Motrin.

Thanks to Katja Presnal who has compiled this video response.  Join with these mothers in voicing your concern and displeasure over this poorly timed and insulting ad. 

Today is my sister’s birthday.  I vividly remember my mother breastfeeding Daire all those years ago.  She reassured me, as I sat quietly on the bed beside her, that “this is how you feed babies”.  The next three in line would be boys.  By the time our youngest brother arrived, we all understood that breastfeeding was a normal part of taking care of a baby.  For us girls, it was an expectation that when we grew up, that we would follow in mom’s footsteps and breastfeed our own babies. 

Fondly remembering those moments as a child, I wonder what will be the memories of some of the new generation of breastfeeding babies.  Will they remember idyllic feedings at their mother’s breasts? Or will they remember watching and listening to the gentle swishing sound of her pumping out her milk to feed them with a bottle?  Will they see their mother breastfeeding their siblings or see her hooked up to a strange machine?  порно смотреть онлайн изнасилование стриптиз на столе

What is being modeled these days is not breastfeeding, but some sort of techno version of same.   Mothers often complain, but continue to dutifully pump because they are being told that it will increase their milk supply.  They get up in the middle of the night and are out of synch with their babies; they get up to pump to keep up with the ever increasing amounts of their milk they feel a need to put into bottles.  Their breastfeeding is being driven by measurements of how much they can express and how much their baby takes in a bottle.

Health care professionals regularly urge mothers to supplement with non-human milk, be it from other mammals or soybeans.  The lactation “experts” push back and recommend pumping as necessary in all cases.  Mothers are caught in the middle of this advice and will lose trust in their milk supply when they are focusing more on measured amounts of milk, human or otherwise, given in bottles.  Breastfeeding for them can feel confusing and overwhelming and  early weaning will be a real possibility.

This does not mean that there isn’t a time and place for pumping, such as work outside the home.  What is worrisome is that pumping is being touted as being almost equal to actual breastfeeding.   We all must relate to technology on a regular basis in modern life be it phones, PDA’s, computers, etc..   Although many of us are rather attached to same, we should not be having a relationship with our machines.  Our various gadgets , including pumps, are merely adjuncts to our experience of daily life. 

It is a sad commentary about breastfeeding these days that, for so many women, the attention and fanfare centers around the regimen of pumping.   This is most unfortunate because the magical alchemy is not merely in the liquid gold that is expressed, but in the relationship that exists between the mother and her unique baby as it breastfeeds. 

Mothers, and those in the Lactation community, need to remember that we teach by example. 

I long for the day when we can believe again in the bounty of our female bodies… They are designed to carry our babies for 9 months inside and continue to nourish and protect them long after birth through breastfeeding. 

This week just passed, 4 October- 10 October, marked the 20′th anniversary of the second Nestle Boycott.  The first began in 1977 and was suspended in 1984 when Nestle appeared to be undertaking measures to abide by the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes.  Monitoring over the intervening years showed many violations and the boycott was resumed in 1988 and continues today.

As a nurse, lactation consultant and passionate advocate for breastfeeding mothers and their babies, I have engaged in my own personal boycott.  This has not always been easy as the long arm of the Nestle corporation has extended its reach by expanding its businesses to include bottled water, pet food and cosmetic companies among many others in their vast empire.   The list of their holdings includes many popular consumer brands.  Nestle Boycott List

In the very informative blog put out by Baby Milk Action, Boycott Nestle-and other action to promote infant health, Mike Grady recounts the legal challenges posed by Nestle for the launching of the new website, http://www.nestlecritics.org  which was timed to coincide with this anniversary. 

Mike says, “The whole point of the site is to provide objective, independent information to people who want to know if Nestlé’s words are reflected in its actions.”

Nestle is the largest food company in the world. The recent contaminated formula tragedy in China and Asia causing the illness of so many infants involves them as well as their competitors.  We need to be vigilant in protecting our food supply, especially for our babies.  Formula and pet food have been shown to be susceptible to breaks in manufacturing quality control causing illness, and in some cases death, for large numbers of infants and pets.

I encourage you to continue Consciously Breastfeeding…

And, join me in the Nestle Boycott.  Buy a different mascara, cereal or water.  Check the list and exercise your power as a consumer.  Nestle puts profits before health and thus it is only when they notice an impact upon their bottom-line that they will they take heed of the need to abide by the Code.

 It is especially important that we lend our voice and our support to these efforts. 

Today, they are blessing animals in many churches here in the States and most likely around the world in honor of the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, the Patron Saint of Pets and the Environment.

It is doubtful that many cows will be waltzing in for a blessing, but you never know.

In India, no thanks to St. Francis, cows are sacred… 

It makes me remember a funny incident that happened to me two decades ago when I was the first lactation consultant in a major hospital here in New York City.  On the lapel of my lab coat I wore a button that I had bought to support the Florida Lactation Consultant Association.   It was simple and powerful…or so I thought. 

This button depicted a cow with a big red slash through it.  The International Symbol for a warning not to do something.  Travelling up to the maternity floor one afternoon a fellow passenger queried me on my button.   Shockingly, it was not the comment/question I had been expecting.  “Don’t kill the cows…are you Hindu? ” was what he asked.  I laughed and pointed out that my freckles were not Bindis and that the purpose of the button was to spark a conversation about breastfeeding.  He got off the lift to go see his wife and child and I went back to work.

A few days later, I was called into the office of the Director of Maternal Child Health and told to stop wearing my button.  I was shocked, but refrained from going ballistic at that moment.  I asked meekly why she was giving this directive to me.  Her answer was incredible.  She told me that, “by wearing this button you are offending formula feeding families.”

I would not be long for that job as the “Powers to Be” in that hospital did not truly support breastfeeding mothers.  As I began my resignation letter in my head, I told her what was the true intention of my wearing that button.  It was simply to open up a light-hearted dialogue about species specific milk…Cows milk for calves and human milk for human babies. 

Here in the Western world,  cows are valued merely as a source food.   These cows are often horribly mistreated in an effort to maximize their production of milk and meat for consumption by humans.  Ironically, there are growing numbers who question whether the consumption of a cow’s milk is a valid option to promote human health.

Fast forward twenty years to 2008.  PETA, people for the ethical treatment of animals, continues its crusade to protect animals a la St. Francis.   Recently in their blog, The PETA Files, attention was focused on cows when they spoke of a letter they had sent to Ben and Jerry’s, a major maker of ice cream, asking them to substitue human milk for cow milk in the production of their ice creams.

All of this made me wonder…

Breastfeeding has all of us Breastfeeding Advocates and Lactivists. 

Would Breastfeeding fair better if it also had a Patron Saint?

Octoberfest is the month for beer and celebration in Germany.  Here in the States, October is the month of the breasts.  The focus primarily being on prevention and detection of Breast Cancer.  

For at least one month every year, I am happy that there is a conversation that centers around breasts.  However, these discussions do not generally highlight the impact of breastfeeding upon the health of women’s breasts and/or the powerful connections that are made during the breastfeeding relationship.

The first week of October, 1 Oct.-7 Oct., also marks National Breastfeeding Week in Ireland.

This year it will focus on promoting the wide range of support and information available to women who are considering breastfeeding.   A new website is launching today to coincide with this annual health initiative. TheBreastWay.ie will be a platform that will continue this theme for years to come and increase the numbers of Irish mothers who are happily breastfeeding their babies.

Having been breastfed by my Irish mother, this hits close to home.  Margaret modeled breastfeeding as a norm for me and my siblings.  In fact, she gave a withering look to the doctor who asked her why she was breastfeeding me, the first of five.  He turned tail and fled the room when asked “What are they (the breasts) there for?” 

I am thrilled that in this month of Octoberfest that there is an Irish light shining upon Breastfeeding rather than on the Guinness, which is often recommended as an elixir to enhance breastmilk production. 

I can add my multi-media book/course

, this blog, The Breastfeeding Salon  and The Breastfeeding Salon Show  to this mix.  Focusing on the positive and promoting a healthy reverence for the breasts and Conscious Breastfeeding the world over.