Recently my body sent me a little warning that I needed to slow down. My husband was out of town last week and that left me on my own (with the three kids) for five days. I shuttled the girls to daily swim lessons, weekly library story time, the children’s museum and a playdate. On top of that I made a concerted effort to keep up with the laundry and other housekeeping chores. By the end of the week, the kids were happy, the house was tidy, but I was wiped out and my body told me so! On Saturday …read more

Pediatrician Dr. Bob Sears makes it his business to stay on top of the latest developments and news regarding vaccinations. He is the author of The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child. He spoke on the topic of vaccines at the La Leche League conference I went to last weekend.
La Leche League conferences are great because children are welcome at the lectures. As I chased my 10-month-old around the back of the room (until she finally fell asleep in the sling as you can see above), I managed to take in a lot of valuable information …read more

Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the United States Breastfeeding Committee (USBC) have issued strong guidance on the importance of breastfeeding for protection against the H1N1 swine flu. The CDC states, “Infants who are not breastfeeding are particularly vulnerable to infection and hospitalization for severe respiratory illness.”
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, …read more

Researchers have long known that breastfeeding mothers benefit from less incidence of breast and ovarian cancer and type II diabetes than formula-feeding mothers. A new study shows yet more strong correlation between breastfeeding and lower rates of diabetes, heart disease and stroke.
Nearly 140,000 post-menopausal women were studied in the Women’s Health Initiative. According to the Vancouver Sun (via One Small Step for Breastfeeding…), the study revealed breastfeeding’s heart health benefits on three levels:
1. Risk Factors. Women who breastfed their babies had lower incidence of the following three risk factors for heart disease: diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
2. …read more

What’s the free postpartum contraceptive option for women? It’s called the Lactational Amenorrhea Method (LAM). I have written about the pros and cons of LAM before, so this time I want to highlight a comprehensive article on LAM (PDF) offered for free by USAID Global Health eLearning Center and the ACCESS Family Planning Initiative.he informative four-page brief is designed to help health care professionals offer LAM guidance in their maternal, child, and family health care practices, but it would be helpful for any woman who wishes to practice LAM. I like how the article uses LAM as a springboard to …read more

Test your knowledge of how alcohol affects breast milk with these 8 questions! The trivia was derived from studies compiled on the LactMed database as of April 2009. For information about drinking and breastfeeding, see this article on alcohol and the controversial Milkscreen test. For current information on drugs and lactation, visit the LactMed database.
nswer these 8 questions and compare how you did with the answers below.
1. Nursing after 1 or 2 drinks (including beer) causes the infant to:
a) increase milk intake.
b) decrease milk intake.
c) Milk intake remains unaffected.
2. Nursing or pumping within one hour before ingesting alcohol:
a) does not …read more

Up to 10% of women experience thyroid problems after giving birth. Postpartum thyroiditis causes fluctuating thyroid hormone levels, first with a period of hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid with excess thyroid hormone) which might then resolve back to normal or dip into a period of hypothyroidism (low thyroid function). Note that this is different from postpartum Graves’ Disease, which is autoimmune hyperthyroidism in which antibodies attack the thyroid and cause it to overproduce thyroid hormone.

Myth: Breastfeeding chains mothers to a nursing chair for endless hours and smothers them with the weight of a nursing pillow and a needy baby. It’s a burden, a sacrifice made by martyr mothers for the health of their babies (and the health of the mothers, if that is even recognized at all). Reality: Let me tell you what appears to be a well-kept secret. How can I put this? Oh yeah. Breastfeeding is awesome! Sure the health benefits for baby and mother are great, and the secondary benefit of being able to soothe a tired, cranky, or hungry baby …read more

Shortly after my neighbor had her third child, she complained that she kept forgetting things. She couldn’t recall the right word for an object or couldn’t remember the name of the movie she watched the week before.
She actually worried that she was suffering from early onset dementia. Well, now that I’ve had my third child, I can assure her that it’s not early onset dementia, it’s third child syndrome! In the last three days, I have forgotten:
1) the name of that television show filmed in Ireland, the one about the Catholic priest tempted by the spunky townswoman, the one I …read more

Remember when I interviewed Dr. Jane Morton about breastfeeding education for medical professionals? Remember when I mentioned her free online video on hand expression of breast milk? Well today I learned from About.com Breastfeeding that Dr. Morton has another fascinating free video online, this time about increasing breast milk supply when it is necessary to pump for a baby in the NICU or any baby not nursing well at the breast. It is called “Maximizing Milk Production” and in 9 minutes 35 seconds, it explains how to increase milk supply without medication. Dr. Morton recommends and demonstrates such techniques as …read more