During a pandemic, children and pregnant women are at high risk of serious complications and even death if they become ill with the flu, according to the March of Dimes. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has developed extensive plans for minimizing the impact of the pandemic flu, and once a vaccine has been developed for the virus causing the pandemic, pregnant women and children from age 6 to 35 months would be given highest priority for receiving it.

For information on how to protect yourself, your unborn child and your young children visit these sites from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

Information for Concerned Parents and Caregivers

Guidance for Prevention and Control of influenza in the Peri- and Postpartum Settings

Photo, Flickr, honey-bee

Post from: Blisstree

Swine Flu Precautions for Nursing, Pregnant

I didn’t breast feed. I’m not blaming it on being high as a hippy for days after my difficult delivery or the absent breast Nazis who never taught me that “latching on” secret or even the breast pump that sucked not one drop of anything from these breasts. I tried a little. And then I just gave up.

Looking back, do I regret it? Of course. Especially when I hear more and more stories of the far-reaching benefits of breast milk for children. I want my son to have the best in this world. He is my life.

Now there is evidence that breastfeeding can be just as beneficial to mothers as well. According to a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine study, touted as one of the largest and longest-running investigations of its kind, women who breast-fed for two years or more had a 23 percent lower risk of heart attack. The same study also showed that women who nursed had a lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, with a 15 percent lower risk per year of breast-feeding.

“Is it the lifestyle of nursing mothers or the milk itself?” asks Alison Stuebe, M.D., assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UNC Chapel Hill who lead the study. “These questions are hard to answer in observational studies. But the protective aspects of breastfeeding are becoming clear.”

Photo, Flickr, honey-bee

Post from: Blisstree

Breastfeeding has Lasting Benefits for Mom

I can’t tell you how often I hear women criticize their own breasts.

I often hear, I just want “normal” breasts. The owner of the breasts has generally stood before a mirror and compared her own image to the images she sees on television, in movies, in magazines and on the Internet.

But, those aren’t NORMAL breasts. Those usually aren’t even REAL breasts.

I once dated a guy who lived in LA. I was astounded and shocked that he believed those LA girls were born with those DDs. He would even argue that 5 foot tall Asian women we would see at a club had been genetically blessed with those DDs.

Give me a break! I would tell him. Living in LA has distorted your idea of what real women look like.

In the past 10 years, with the increase in plastic surgery and the invention of Photoshop there has been a dramatic increase in unrealistic images of breasts plastered all over commercials, television, movies, magazines and the Internet. I think most people now have a distorted idea of what real women’s breasts look like.

Enter the radical and brilliant Normal Breasts Gallery, where real women have posted anonymous images of their own breasts.

Have you seen pictures of normal non-sexual breasts? the Female Intelligence Agency who started 007b.com asks? It’s a valid question.

Along with the Normal Breasts Gallery they also sell a book, Female Breats: The Taboo – The Purpose and advocate reclaiming the breasts for nursing babies (gasp … even in public).

It’s wildly refreshing to see what God and Mother Nature made women to look like.

It’s very satisfying to see real women stand up and declare “This is who I am,” and talk about how they feel about their own mirror image.

Image Source: www.007b.com

Post from: Blisstree

Normal Breasts Gallery