200 Hospitals Nationwide Will Replace Formula Sample Bags with Breastfeeding Support Bags

This month, 200 hospitals across the country are replacing their formula discharge bags and samples with the country’s first breastfeeding support promotional discharge bag.


The “Healthy Baby Bounty Bag” contains product samples, coupons, and information that support and encourage breastfeeding without a packet of formula and without conflicting and contradictory messages about breastfeeding. Hospitals including UCLA Medical Center, Children’s Hospital in Boston, Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, and Exeter Hospital are among the first to distribute Healthy Baby Bounty Bags to new moms.

The bags are created by Cottonwood Kids, a promotional products company that produces custom gifts for hospitals. The bags are green, made from recycled materials, and are 100 percent lead free. They are designed to serve as a cooler and storage carrier for breastmilk. All items inside are compliant with the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes (also known as the WHO Code), and are therefore completely focused on the importance of breastfeeding with no nipples or bottles included.

The samples are as follows:

Disposable Nursing Pads
Milk Storage Bags
Latch on Tips card
Mothers Milk Tea
Diaper Wipes
Aquaphor Baby Healing Ointment
Boogie Wipes Anti Viral Tissues
Sani Hands- Hand Sanitzer
Sear Portrait Studio Coupon
Free Gift Card for the mother that gifts can be redeemed on-line. Everyone gets a gift. Prizes include a $5,000 savings bond, free breast pumps nursing pillows and more.
Coupon Book that includes coupons from the following companies

Lansinoh – Gel Pads
Lansinoh- Breast Pads
Lansinoh- Pumps
Lansinoh- HPA Lanolin Breast Cream
Lansinoh – Breastmilk Storage Bags
Bravado Designs Breastfeeding Bras
Mother’s Milk Organic Tea to promote lacation
My Brest Friend Nursing Pillows
Bebe Au Lait Nursing Covers
Aquaphor Diaper Cream, Shampoo and Healing Ointment
Sear Portrait Studios Portraits
Seventh Generation Diapers
Seventh Generation Wipes
Seventh Generation Natural Cleaning Products
Seventh Generation Feminine Care Products
Boogie Wipes Anti Viral Tissues
Sani Hands Hand Sanitizer
Ergo Baby: Ergonomically correct baby carriers
Baby Stay Asleep: Infant positioning System to help with reflux
Belly Bar Nutrition Products for Mothers
Milkscreen Human Milk Banking Association of North America
The coupons themselves add up to over $100.00 in savings.

Visit www.cottonwood-kids.com/gift for all the details.

in some places, babies come first

http://www.mothering.com/milk-life-breastfeeding-sultanate-oman

By Um Yaqoob
Issue 106, May/June 2001

It was 9 p.m. when the nurse wheeled me to my bed, one of six in the Omani hospital ward. After a full day of labor, I thought I would finally settle down with my sleeping newborn and get some rest.

The first few cries from the baby in the adjoining bed didn't bother me. The mother responded quickly, and I was able to doze off. When he howled for the second, third, fourth, fifth, and then I-don't-know-what-number time, the mother let out an audible "tsk" before she went to pick him up. Her nerves were beginning to fray. By 3 a.m., so were mine and those of the other four women on the ward. The later it got, the longer it took the woman to pick up her son. The nurse came to talk to her. "He wants to nurse," she said.

"I keep feeding him. There is no milk." The woman raised her voice, a heavy accent coloring her English. She was near to tears.

"There doesn't need to be any milk. He just needs you."

"I'm tired! I can't keep getting up to nurse him! Please, can you give him a bottle?"

"No." The answer was very firm. "Breastfeeding is not just about milk, Mother. Your breast is all that baby knows. He needs the colostrum that is there now. Even if you don't feel it, it's there."

The mother moaned and fell back onto the bed. "I can't stand any more of this."

I felt sorry for her. I felt sorry for all of us. Her baby was keeping all the mothers, and our newborns, from getting our rest. Yet I imagined her nipples were sore by then, and her fatigue was aggravating her impatience with her baby's need to suck.

The doctor came. "What's wrong, Mother? Your baby won't nurse?"

"He nurses! That's the problem! That's all he wants to do. He won't sleep because he's not getting any milk. Please, doctor, tell the nurse I need to give him a bottle."

The doctor shook his head. "I cannot do that. Your baby is sick. He has a fever. That is why he won't sleep. He needs what is coming from your breast now. It is the only medicine we have for him."

She started to cry.

"You are a mother of five now. You know all of this. Please. You must feed your baby." He picked up the whimpering baby and gave him to his mother. "Feed your baby, Mother."

Finally, after several more wakings, the baby became quiet. He was quiet for so long, in fact, that I could not sleep in the sudden silence. Looking over to see what had calmed him, I saw that the woman had fallen asleep with the baby at her breast. Her arm was around him. If he awoke, what he needed was right in front of him.

Morning came just two hours later. Before the nurses had even come to change the beds, the occupants of bed number one had a visitor. A tall woman stood sternly over the mother and sick baby. The woman began to speak in excited Arabic.

"What is this the nurse is telling me? You were asking for a bottle for the baby?"

"He couldn't sleep. He was hungry."

The visitor shook her head. "Yes, he was hungry--hungry for his mother! Do you want to stay here for a month with a sick baby? Your other children are crying for you, and you are just lying here in the bed!"

"I cannot feed him anymore! I'm tired."

"Give him to me, then. I have milk. I'll nurse him." The tall woman lifted the baby from his bassinet and sat down.
By now all of the other mothers, including me, were sitting up to watch the scene. The tall woman had the baby in position, ready to latch on, when the mother said, "Give him to me."

"Why? You said he needs milk. Here is milk." She drew the baby close again.

The mother reached for her child. "I'll feed him."

Slowly, her eyes set straight on the mother, the woman handed the baby over. "Feed him, then. No more talk about bottles. No nephew of mine will have a bottle before he has even left the hospital!" After a few minutes, satisfied the new mother would indeed devote herself to breastfeeding, the visitor left.

The mother scarcely put the baby down the rest of the day. He sucked at her breast even as she sat dozing in her chair, even as she ate her food. Except for an occasional fuss from the other babies, the ward was quiet.

Evening came, and with it arrived the doctor. "Well, Mother, I see your medicine worked. The fever is down, and if it stays down you can go home tomorrow."

Relief flooded the woman's face. "Alhamdu lillah [thanks be to God]!" she proclaimed. After the doctor left, I heard the woman sniffling. She was crying, kissing the baby, saying "Alhamdu lillah" over and over.

"Press Twisted My Words", says academic in breastmilk row

Press twisted my words, says academic in breast-milk row

Mothers who do not breastfeed thought they had a new ally. But he was misinterpreted, he says

By Susie Mesure


Sunday, 2 August 2009
In World Breastfeeding Week, mothers are urged to persevere, for the sake of their baby's health.

Few topics are more emotive than breastfeeding, that rite of passage into motherhood. Witness the furore that erupted over a story purporting to rubbish claims that breast milk provided newborns with a protective shield against an array of illnesses or allergies.


Mums everywhere entrenched their positions on either side of the breast-milk divide when they leapt on the alleged assertion made by a leading professor of paediatrics and breastfeeding adviser to the World Health Organisation and Unicef. Michael Kramer was reported as saying that much of the evidence used to persuade mothers to breastfeed was either wrong or out of date.

Those in the anti camp were particularly ecstatic. "It was all I could do not to dance around the room whooping with joy.... Thanks for vindicating all the mums who dared to challenge the sanctimonious breastfeeding orthodoxy in 'discussion' forums," wrote TheJasMonster on Mumsnet after reading the article in The Times. Conversely, those pro-breastfeeding, from new mums trying to do the right thing to anti-formula campaigners such as Baby Milk Action, were left devastated that someone as respected as Kramer, who has studied evidence on breastfeeding since 1978, could perform such a massive U-turn. Especially on the eve of World Breastfeeding Week, which kicked off yesterday.

Or did he? Not a bit of it, says the professor, who is renowned for a groundbreaking study that found an IQ advantage to breastfeeding even after you'd stripped out the natural advantages that being the sort of mum who breastfeeds would give her child. Rather, he is spitting tacks at how his comments had been so "grossly misrepresented" for the second time in almost as many months. (The first was in the respected American magazine, The Atlantic, in an article entitled "The case against breastfeeding", which ignited the original media storm on the subject.)

"Journalists certainly have the right to express their own opinions, but not to misquote experts they choose to interview in order to support those opinions. That sort of sensationalist journalist would not surprise me from the tabloids, but I had expected better from The Atlantic and The Times," Kramer said last night.

The Times quoted Kramer, who is based at McGill University, Montreal, as saying there was "very little evidence" breastfeeding reduces the risk of a range of diseases from leukaemia to heart disease. Yet, what he actually said was: "The existing evidence suggests that breastfeeding may protect against the risk of leukaemia, lymphoma, inflammatory bowel disease, type 1 diabetes, heart disease and blood pressure." All he did concede was that we need "more and better studies to pursue these links", a common cry from academics lacking in funding.

As for the article merely casting him "in the camp that believes that breastfeeding will turn out to have a slight effect on brain development", well, that hardly squared with his life's work, he said yesterday. "There is an IQ advantage to breastfeeding by as much as three or four points. It's not the difference between Einstein and a mental retard at an individual level, but it means having a smarter population on average, fewer children with school difficulties, and more gifted children."

He added: "There really isn't any controversy about which mode of feeding is more beneficial for the baby and the mother, but when you read the article in The Times it sounds like there is." Furthermore, he points out: "I'm not aware of any studies that have observed any health benefits of formula feeding. That's important, and any mother weighing the benefits of breastfeeding vs formula feeding needs to know that."

His only note of caution, which was flipped on its head by both publications, was that breastfeeding advocates don't need "to overstate their case for issues that are more controversial", such as the link between breastfeeding and protection against obesity, allergies and asthma. "Public health bodies don't have to exaggerate the benefits in order to be very comfortable about supporting breastfeeding," he added.

Some solace for campaigners such as the WHO, keen to use World Breastfeeding Week to increase global breastfeeding rates and save up to 1.3 million children's lives a year. Worldwide, fewer than 40 per cent of mums breastfeed exclusively for the first six months of their baby's life, as recommended: in the UK only 3 per cent are still breastfeeding exclusively at five months.

Breastfeeding Most Preventative Health Measure

Interview: Breastfeeding, most preventive health measure


www.chinaview.cn 2009-08-01 12:13:24

WASHINGTON, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Breastfeeding is not only cost effective but also a preventive health measure, a U.S. expert said ahead of the World Breastfeeding Week 2009 from Aug.1 to Aug. 7.

The whole society should do more to promote breastfeeding, Dr. Joan Younger Meek, Chair of the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee (USBC), told Xinhua in an written interview.

Meek, who is also clinical associate professor in Florida State University, said both mothers and infants can benefit greatly from breastfeeding, so women should breastfeed their children as possible as they can.

"Formula fed infants have higher risks of infection, such as diarrhea, ear infections, and respiratory infections, chronic disease, such as diabetes, obesity, sudden infant death syndrome, and even risk of death, compared to breastfed infants," said Dr. Meek.

"Mothers who breastfeed have lower risk of breast and ovarian cancer, less risk of heart disease and diabetes."

"During times of emergency, and especially in times of natural disaster, breast milk is the safe, affordable, and always available source of feeding for a baby," Meek said.

He said that the USBC will hold a series activities to celebrate the World Breastfeeding Week, whose theme is "Breastfeeding: A Vital Emergency Response."

The USBC, formed in 1998, is an independent nonprofit coalition of more than 40 organizations that support its mission to improve the Nation's health by working collaboratively to protect, promote, and support breastfeeding.

"Formula feeding costs much more than breastfeeding and is not environmentally friendly," said Meek.

"We all need to help educate women and families about the importance of breastfeeding," he added.

Talking about what measures the government, communities and society should take to promote breastfeeding, Meek said that hospital and health care workers need to actively support breastfeeding. Babies should be kept with their mothers after delivery and placed skin-to-skin.

According to the U.S. National Immunization Survey, the most recent national statistics show that 74 percent of babies born in the U.S. begin breastfeeding, but only 43 percent are breastfeeding at 6 months, and 21 percent at 12 months. Only 32 percent are exclusively breastfeeding at 3 months.

U.S. rates are higher than some countries, but are lower than other countries, such as Sweden, where more than 95 percent of babies are breastfed.

Recommendations are that babies should be breastfed exclusively for 6 months, and continue being breastfed with appropriate introduction of complementary solid for 1-2 years of life.

"We need to work to make breastfeeding the cultural norm and eliminate routine use of infant formula," Meek said, "We need to support women's rights to breastfeed in public and to continue to breastfeed if they return to work."

On June 11, 2009, U.S. Representative Carolyn B. Maloney and Senator Jeff Merkley introduced the Breastfeeding Promotion Act in both houses of Congress, to provide a unified national policy to keep mothers, their children, and their communities healthy.

The act will protect breastfeeding mothers from discrimination in the workplace, require large employers to provide the time and private space moms need to express milk, and provides for tax incentives for employers that establish private lactation areas in the workplace.

Meek said the act is a starting point and provides strong language of support. "Though the act is not all inclusive, it is an important step

in helping women achieve their breastfeeding goals."

Breastfeeding Could Save Millions of Lives

Breastfeeding could save millions of lives


Canwest News ServiceAugust 1, 2009

Teaching new mothers how to breastfeed could save 1.3 million children's lives every year, but many women get no help and give up trying, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

Less than 40 per cent of mothers worldwide breastfeed their infants exclusively in the first six months, as recommended by the WHO.

But many abandon it because they suffer pain and discomfort.

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