One Dollar Coins Photo by Pfala

With these funds, we will make mothers’ voices heard in ongoing national debates on health care, work-life balance, and consumer safety. The closer we come to representing each mother in America, the more clearly we can show the President and Congress: “Americans believe that EVERY MOTHER COUNTS.” Help us reach the goal of one dollar for each new mother. Please donate today!

Donate now through January 15, 2010.

2. Your local breastfeeding coalition. You can make a difference on a local level by joining your local breastfeeding coalition and making a donation.

3. Baby Milk Action. If you are unhappy with Nestle’s unethical marketing practices, one way to express your objection is to donate to the UK’s Baby Milk Action, a non-profit organization that “aims to save lives and to end the avoidable suffering caused by inappropriate infant feeding. Baby Milk Action works within a global network to strengthen independent, transparent and effective controls on the marketing of the baby feeding industry.” Baby Milk Action is part of the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN), a network of over 200 citizens groups in more than 100 countries. Help IBFAN celebrate its 30th anniversary by making a donation.

4. One Million Campaign. The One Million Campaign was initiated by IBFAN to mobilize public opinion through one million signatures, demanding support to women to breastfeed.

ONE MILLION CAMPAIGN Support Women to Breastfeed brings together people of all ages from all walks of life to generate the support women need to breastfeed successfully. Through participating in the Movement’s campaigns, petitions to local, national and international policy makers, discussions groups, evidence-based information sharing, and actions at every level, you can focus national and global attention on the several challenges to successful breastfeeding and help to resolve them.

If you support such a global initiative, support the campaign’s efforts with your donation.

5. Breastfeeding calendars. Your purchase of a 2010 breastfeeding calendar is a win-win deal — you get a beautiful calendar and the proceeds benefit a non-profit breastfeeding support organization.

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

1. Adequate testing of new ingredients prior to their addition to infant formula and updated FDA review and approval procedures for those ingredients.
2. Close monitoring for adverse reactions to the products and a public report of those reactions.
3. Review and any necessary repudiation of the health claims made in the marketing of formula.
4. Advice to consumers that formula is not sterile, poses dangers due to contamination, and must be properly prepared.

Newborn baby in father's hands by Michelle Bergkamp

Frankly I think it’s incredible that those provisions are not already in place, given that for many (too many!) babies, formula is all they consume for the first six months of life. Those tiny and vulnerable babies — if they are not going to receive breast milk — at least must be assured the safest possible breast milk substitute.

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

“Dear Friend:

On June 11, Representative Carolyn B. Maloney (NY) and Senator Jeff Merkley (OR) introduced the Breastfeeding Promotion Act in both houses of Congress. This is the first time the bill has been introduced in the Senate.

Forty-seven states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands already have enacted various laws protecting breastfeeding mothers, but they are not uniform and most are not comprehensive. Ask your Representative and Senators to co-sponsor the Breastfeeding Promotion Act to provide a unified national policy to keep mothers, their children, and their communities healthy.

**TAKE ACTION**
Tell your Representative and Senators to co-sponsor the Breastfeeding Promotion Act:
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5162/t/6359/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1697

We know that breastfeeding is good for mothers, babies, and society. The medical evidence shows that NOT breastfeeding increases the baby’s risk of infections, diarrhea, SIDS, obesity, diabetes, asthma, and childhood leukemia, and increases the mother’s risk of breast and ovarian cancers and diabetes.Breastfeeding also has significant economic and environmental benefits for families, employers, and society.

Given all of these benefits, all major medical authorities (including the Department of Health and Human Services), recommend that babies get no food or drink other than breast milk for their first 6 months and continue to breastfeed for at least the first 1-2 years of life. But mothers need more support: only 12% of U.S. mothers are exclusively breastfeeding at 6 months, and only 21% are still breastfeeding at 1 year.

Interest in breastfeeding is at an all-time high: 77% of women breastfeed their infants at birth. But breastfeeding rates drop rapidly after hospital discharge. More than 50% of women with infants less than one year old are in the labor force. Employed mothers are more likely to stop breastfeeding early if they do not receive the support they need in the workplace.

Together we can change this! Tell Congress to support the Breastfeeding Promotion Act to provide the support mothers need!

WRITE TO CONGRESS:
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5162/t/6359/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1697

The Breastfeeding Promotion Act (H.R. 2819, S. 1244) includes five provisions:
1. Amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect breastfeeding women from being fired or discriminated against in the workplace.
2. Provides tax incentives for businesses that establish private lactation areas in the workplace, or provide breastfeeding equipment or consultation services to their employees.
3. Provides for a performance standard to ensure breast pumps are safe and effective.
4. Allows breastfeeding equipment and consultation services to be tax deductible for families (amends Internal Revenue Code definition of “medical care”).
5. Protects the privacy of breastfeeding mothers by ensuring they have break time and a private place to pump (applies to employers with 50 or more employees, see text of legislation for details).

You’ve been making great strides at the state level, and we know we can do it at the national level too! With a few clicks of the mouse today, you can help build critical support for a groundbreaking bill to protect, promote, and support breastfeeding in the United States.

We look forward to continuing our important work together to improve the health of mothers and babies, and thank you in advance for your support.”

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3

Photo courtesy of Furya

Thus, the CDC urges new mothers to initiate breastfeeding early and to feed frequently. Mothers already breastfeeding should continue to do so, even if they become ill. Formula feeding should be avoided or minimized and breastfeeding maximized. In the Health News Digest, USBC Chair Joan Younger Meek, MD, MS, RD, FAAP, FABM, IBCLC, recommends breastfeedng in emergency situations such as a swine flu outbreak:

Research clearly shows that breastfeeding provides a safe, reliable food source, full of disease-fighting cells and antibodies that help protect infants from germs and illnesses. Mothers exposed to influenza produce specific protection for their infants and transmit this through their breast milk. Infant formula does not provide these specific infection fighting properties. Unnecessary formula supplementation should be eliminated so the infant can receive as much benefit as possible from maternal protective antibodies and other immune protective factors.

Key points from the CDC swine flu guidance include:

1. If a mother is ill with swine flu, she should continue breastfeeding and feed the baby more often. If she is too ill to feed at the breast but can pump, expressed breast milk should be fed to the baby. The risk of transmission of the H1N1 virus through breast milk is unknown, but reports of transmission of the regular, seasonal flu through breast milk are rare.

2. If the baby becomes too ill to feed at the breast, he should receive the mother’s expressed breast milk or donated human milk from a non-profit milk bank.

3. Antiviral medication treatment and prophylaxis are compatible with breastfeeding.

4. All usual precautions against virus transmission should be taken, including hand washing and covering coughs and sneezes.

Post from: Breastfeeding 1-2-3