Well, this has to be just about the most boring picture ever taken, but I'm sharing it because it represents some progress our local breastfeeding task force has made.
It's the freezer we're going to use to establish a breastmilk collection station for the Mothers' Milk Bank of New England. When the milk bank starts processing milk we'll be collecting approved donors' milk here before shipping it off to the Boston area. We were very lucky to have a brand new freezer donated by Salemi Appliance, and it was delivered on Friday to the basement of the pediatric practice where I work.
I'm also really pleased to say that we recently purchased three hospital grade breastpumps to donate to area WIC offices. This it the result of lots of fundraising work over the last year or so. I'm really excited that WIC offices in our area will be able to loan pumps to more moms who might otherwise not be able to afford to rent them. A recent study (pdf) about the effect of pumps on breastfeeding among moms enrolled in WIC came out last year, and it confirms what we all would have guessed - access to pumps helps moms breastfeed exclusively longer. The study found that mothers who had pumps were 5.5 times less likely to have requested formula by the time their babies were six months old than moms who didn't have access to pumps. We're also planning to put on a free half day training on pumps for WIC offices and other people involved in breastfeeding support in our area, probably in March.
I also reached a bit of a milestone on a personal project. I'm writing a book, with a friend, which will help breastfeeding support people learn Spanish. The goal is to help people who support nursing moms be able to communicate more effectively with Spanish speaking mothers. I shared a few audio clips a while back. We're getting the book approved for continuing education credits for lactation consultants, and we have just finished a draft that is good enough for field testers to try it out. We'll be rerecording and editing in December, with a final deadline of January.
So, there are some things moving in the right direction here!
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