The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog

Motherwear gift certificates on sale

Just a quick note to let you know that Motherwear gift certificates are 10% off, through December 2nd (11:59 EST).

Use code GIFT at checkout!

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Join the December carnival of breastfeeding: The gifts of breastfeeding

What gifts has breastfeeding given you or your family?  We'd like to hear about it in your submission to the December carnival of breastfeeding!

Submissions are due by December 13th and the Carnival will be on December 20th. We're using Google Docs to collect submissions, so please fill out this spreadsheet in order to submit your post.

As always, we're looking for posts that are:

- Well-written and grammatically correct
- Thoughtful and directly on point for the carnival subject
- Submitted by blogs that pertain to subjects of interest to our readers (breastfeeding, parenting, etc.)

If your post is selected for inclusion, you will be asked on the day of the carnival to edit your post to link back to each of the other participants in the carnival. Examples of past carnivals can be found here.

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Eats on Feets: What is informed choice when it comes to milk sharing?

I'm a bad blogger.  I'm supposed to be able to respond quickly to things in the news.  But I've had to mull over this topic for a while before feeling ready to write about it.  So, here goes.

Recently, an Arizona midwife and a Canadian breastfeeding advocate established Eats on Feets, a network of Facebook pages dedicated to mother-to-mother milk sharing.  In the blink of an eye nearly 90 chapter pages were set up in 18 countries.  The name Eats on Feets is a play on Meals on Wheels.

This is not the first time that the web has been used to facilitate milk sharing.  MilkShare, a website which connects donors and recipients through a Yahoo Group, has been operating for some time.  What's new about Eats on Feets is the scale and openness of the network.

Not surprisingly, Eats on Feets has gotten the attention of the press as well as at least one national health agency.  Time Magazine's blog published a fairly supportive post.  In contrast, the Canadian health agency Health Canada responded with a press release warning of risks of potential health risks and stating, "unprocessed human milk should not be shared." 

The one thing everyone can agree on is that mothers should be fully informed of the risks and benefits of milk sharing. Health Canada "advises Canadians to be aware of the potential health risks associated with consuming human breast milk obtained through the Internet or directly from individuals."  La Leche League states that "the Leader’s role is to provide information about the risks and benefits so that the mother can make her own informed decision based on her situation." Much of the discussion on Lactnet has focused on whether we are showing disrespect for the wisdom of mothers when we assume that women can't make good decisions for themselves when presented with the necessary information.  Eats on Feets states "We encourage milk-sharers to utilize the principles of Informed Choice when establishing milk-sharing relationships." 

But what does it mean to be informed when it comes to milk sharing?  Everyone probably has a different threshold.  I can only say what I would want to know, which might be more or less that you would.

Eats on Feets has a page on "health issues" associated with milk sharing.  It discusses some concerns, such as HIV (see my comment below), hepatitis, and sexually transmitted diseases.  But I would want to know more.  Here are a few additional things I'd want to know (and this is not by any means an exhaustive list):* 

- We often assume that women who are nursing their own babies in this country don't test positive for viruses such as HIV.  But a recent study which reviewed blood tests for donors to the Mothers' Milk Bank of San Jose (CA) from a six year period found "3.3% were positive on screening serology, including 6 syphilis, 17 hepatitis B, 3 hepatitis C, 6 HTLV and 4 HIV."  My understanding is that this rate (3.3%) is similar to the rate found in blood and organ donation.  I'd want to know about this.

- Preterm and immune compromised babies can respond very differently to viruses and bacteria in milk than healthy full term infants.  If I had a preterm or immune compromised infant I would definitely want to know this.  

- Eats on Feets is an international network, and I would want to be aware that the calculus of milk sharing in the developing and developed world involves different risks and benefits.  International recommendations also need to be viewed in the context of these differences.

- I would want more information about the risk of HIV transmission than the CDC statement posted on the the Eats on Feets website.  This statement was written to apply to a very specific and limited circumstance - when a baby is mistakenly given another mother's milk once in a hospital.  This is obviously different than long term exposure.  I also think that one could easily conclude from reading the statement in isolation that simply expressing milk kills the HIV virus, and I think that this is a dangerous assumption.  The CDC continues to recommend that HIV positive mothers not breastfeed.  Similarly, I would want more information than what is presented about medication use on the Eats on Feets website.

Finally, I have to take exception to the implication in the Time Magazine article and other sources that part of the problem is that milk banks aren't meeting the needs of full term, healthy infants.  In the article, which is titled, "Move over Milk Banks:  Facebook and Milk Sharing," the author states, "Milk banks screen and pasteurize donated milk and give priority to premature and very ill babies, essentially preventing most families from accessing the milk. And for those who can get banked milk, it is often prohibitively expensive: $3 to $5 per oz., upwards of $100 for a day's supply."

The small number of milk banks in this country are struggling mightily to meet their mission of providing safe donor milk to the babies who need it most (very premature and very ill babies), and for whom it is unquestionably life-saving.  I recently interviewed the president of the Human Milk Banking Association of North America, who flatly said of efforts to get donor milk to preterm infants, "we aren't meeting the need."  She also pointed to a projection showing that, between the rapid growth in the use of donor milk for preterm infants (which has already tripled in the last ten years) and the growth in the rate of preterm birth, the demand can be expected to increase four-fold in coming years.  I don't think that milk banks see as their mission to supply milk for very large number of healthy full term babies when there are so many critically ill babies who suffer from lack of access to it now.  So, to me, complaining that milk banks aren't meeting this need is a little like blaming a fish for not being a horse. 

So, there are my two cents.  I'd love to hear yours.

*I'm going to assume that we all know the benefits of breastfeeding/risks of formula, but in case you want a list, here's a good place to start.

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The winning entry from Motherwear's nursing tip contest

Contratulations to Marisa K., winner of Motherwear's $100 nursing tip and story contest!  Below is her winning entry.

You can read more great stories and tips here!

"I am the first one to breastfeed in my family and so my family was a little hesitant at the thought of me nursing my son in the same room as them. I came across your site and quickly ordered several tops. The story that sticks out in my mind was when my husband's cousin came over to visit us. I was feeding my son when he came in, gave a kiss hello to all of us and then sat right next to me on the couch. Time and conversation had passed and I went to burp my son and the discussion of feeding came in to topic... he put two and two together and immediately said "WAIT, you were just feeding him this whole time!!!???" He had NO clue I was feeding the baby because your tops are awesome! No one ever notices or stares because they can't tell. It simply looks as if I am holding a sleeping baby. :) From then on it doesn't matter who is around me when I nurse my 2nd child now, because they all know that I wear a motherwear top and feel completely comfortable... and most importantly... SO DO I!!! THANK YOU MOTHERWEAR!!!"

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Milk shipment #2

On Monday I shipped off more milk to the Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas.  This one was smaller than the first shipment, but definitely freed up a lot of room in our freezer.

(I do actually know how to spell 'milk.' The note is my son's record of how many ounces I was sending.)

 

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An unbroken chain

Welcome to November's Carnival of Breastfeeding!  This month's theme is family breastfeeding history.  Check out the bottom of this posts for links to other posts on this topic. 

The picture to the left is of me and my mother, circa 1970.  In it I'm a few months old.  It's the only picture I have of her nursing me (another reason why I'm trying to take more pictures this time).

I love this picture because, while it looks like a simple domestic scene, its subject is really outside the mainstream for the time. 

The early seventies were the low point for breastfeeding in the U.S., with only about one in four mothers ever putting their babies to breast.  So this was a very unusual sight in those days.

My mother tells me that her pediatrician was supportive of breastfeeding (though he did instruct her to start me on solids at 6 weeks), and his support was certainly one factor in her decision to breastfeed.  But from what I can gather it was her friend Phyllis who was the key factor in the feeding equation.  My mother once told me, "Phyllis was doing it, so I did it, too."  She has also told me about how she'd meet other moms in the park and they would all nurse under their ponchos.

When I was looking at the research on Latinas in breastfeeding for this presentation, one fact kept leaping off the page:  the influence of peers makes a huge difference in feeding decisions.  It certainly seems like it did in my mother's case.  It also probably didn't hurt that her mother (my maternal grandmother), who immigrated from Japan in 1911, had twelve children and breastfed all of them. 

On my father's side, my Jewish paternal grandmother, who has a great memory still at 95, tells me that she breastfed her children.  She says, "It wasn't at all the thing to do back then, but I did it.  That was just my way."

I think it's safe to assume that all of the generations that came before these breastfed, so it all adds up to an unbroken chain of breastfeeding on both sides of my family, and I think that's something to be thankful for.

Check out these posts by other bloggers on this month's theme (updated throughout the day):

• Christine's Contemplations: Carnival of Breastfeeding- My Family History of Nursing
• Mommy News Blog: My Family History of Breastfeeding
• Breastfeeding Twins: Beer & Bottles (and other motherly advice)
• Blacktating: Three Generations of Breastfeeding
• Attached at the Nip: How Women in My Family Feed Babies
• Lactation Narration: Only the Hippies Were Breastfeeding
• Dr. Sarah: Breastfeeding, Circa 1950s

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What's on your library shelf?

My local breastfeeding coalition has a new project:  updating - or establishing - the breastfeeding collections at our local libraries.

We've been checking the collections of each of our libraries using a regional web-based card catalog.  Some have pretty good collections, others are really outdated (meaning books from the late 80's or early 90's), and one medium sized city's library had nothing.

So we're drafting a letter requesting a few recent titles, like The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding (2010), Breastfeeding Made Simple (2010) and The Nursing Mother's Companion (2010).  We're also requesting books on breastfeeding and working, like The Milk Memos, and twins, like Mothering Multiples.  Our region has a very well used interlibrary loan system, so these books will travel around as requested.

Even in this era of declining funding, libraries do have budgets to update their collections, and they want to acquire books that the community will use.  We also have a small budget to purchase copies if a library can't do so.  When I approached the librarian at my local library she said, 'Oh, sure, we'll get those,' and wrote down the titles.  Easy as pie.

So, what's on your library's shelf?

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Keeps vampires away, too.

A few months ago, when I was in the midst of oversupply madness, I awoke one morning with a plugged duct. 

This had been happening fairly frequently because I had so much milk, and I could usually massage any congested areas and the plugs would resolve.  But this time, try as I might, I couldn't get it to clear.

Over the course of that day I tried:  massage, warm compresses, cold compresses, rest, drinking extra fluids, baths, frequent feedings on that side, changing nursing positions, nursing over the baby, pumping, looking for any obstructions (blebs), and some ibuprofen, but nothing worked.

At around 24 hours after I first noticed the plugged area I saw a red streak in that area.  Red streaking, fever/chills, and no resolution after 24 hours are each signs that it's time to call your provider.  So I felt resigned to calling my midwife and taking antibiotics. 

I really didn't want to use antibiotics because both my daughter and I had had to have antibiotics after the birth, and it had given her a nasty diaper rash, diarrhea, and a lot of gas (though luckily no oral thrush).  So I wanted to avoid that if I could.

Then I noticed that Kellymom recommends garlic as an antibiotic.* Worth a try, I thought, and I chopped up 4 or 5 cloves very finely, and swallowed it raw with some juice.  And the infection cleared within a few hours!  I took 2 or 3 more cloves a few more times after that, too.

Now maybe all of the things I was doing worked and the garlic had nothing to do with it, but it sure seemed like it did the trick.  Yes, I did smell strong enough to repel vampires.  Fortunately, my baby didn't seem to mind that she had garlic flavored milk.

I felt comfortable holding off on calling my midwife because I've seen so many cases of mastitis in my work and knew that it wasn't yet serious.  But I've seen some mastitis develop very quickly into a serious and highly painful infection, some even requiring hospitalization.  So it's important to check in with your provider if any of these signs are present.

All that said, have any of you tried garlic for mastitis?

*This is a personal story and is not intended as medical advice.  Consult with your own health care provider for care suited to your own situation.

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We're better together.

I thought this was sweet.  Enjoy!

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Galactagogue week: Motherlove's More Milk Plus giveaway!

For the very final day of Galactagogue Week I'm very pleased to be able to give away some of Motherlove Herbal Company's herbal breastfeeding products!

Again, I want to point anyone looking to increase her milk supply to this podcast on making more milk, for a list of the many things to do before, or while, taking a galactagogue.  And remember that there are many things that might lead you to think that your supply is low when it isn't.  The podcast discusses this, too.

Motherlove's More Milk tinctures and capsules are a favorite of lactation consultants.  Motherlove is also the only maker of Goat's Rue I know of, and I frequently refer moms who are looking to increase glandular tissue to them.  Their nipple cream and diaper rash/thrush creams are also favorites.

Motherlove also donates 10% of after tax products to their Nurturing Life Foundation, which is devoted to supporting breastfeeding and creating opportunities for children.

For this giveaway three lucky winners will each be able to choose which product they'd like from the following:  More Milk, More Milk Plus, and More Milk Special Blend (which includes Goat's Rue), or Goat's Rue in either tincture or capsule form.

To enter - get ready for a new one - please leave a review in our iTunes podcast store and then leave a comment below so I have a way to get in touch with you.  Many of you have told me that you like the podcasts, and I'd like to see some of that love in the reviews!  You'll need an iTunes account.  If you absolutely, positively can't leave a review in the iTunes store you can leave it below and I'll figure out how to submit it.  Submit your review by November 22nd.  I'll pick winners using random.org, email them, and announce it in the comments section of this post.  One entry per person, U.S. addresses only.  Winners must respond to my email within three days or alternate winners will be chosen.

P.S.  I'll have an announcement about Motherlove and me soon!

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