The Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog

Celebrate Motherwear's 25th anniversary with another $25 gift certificate contest.

Motherwear's 25th anniversary continues with another monthly $25 gift certificate contest!

This time we're celebrating Mother's Day by asking you to leave a comment with your favorite advice from your own mom.

Here are a few from my mom that I recall on a daily basis:

When I got overwhelmed: "First things first."
When I was trying to carry too many things:  "Take two trips."
When I lost something:  "Don't forget to look under."

Leave your favorite advice from your mom in the comments section by the end of the day on May 9th.  I'll pick a winner randomly and notify you by email if you've won.  Please remember to use a "real" email address so I can contact you.

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Join the May Carnival of Breastfeeding: Pregnancy and breastfeeding.

May is Pregnancy Awareness Month, and for this month's carnival we're seeking posts on the topic of pregnancy and breastfeeding.

You might write about:

- What you did (or wish you did) in pregnancy to prepare for breastfeeding
- What you thought/are thinking about breastfeeding during your pregnancy
- Your advice to pregnant women about breastfeeding
- Breastfeeding during pregnancy

We'll be looking for posts that are:

• Well written and grammatically correct
• Thoughtful and directly on point for the carnival subject
• Submitted from blogs related to breastfeeding or parenting

Email me your submission by May 20th, 2008.  The carnival will be on Tuesday, May 27th, 2008.  Please note that, if your post is selected for inclusion by our regular group of bloggers, you will be asked to link to each of the other participants in the carnival.  We reserve the right to choose posts for inclusion.  Examples of past carnival posts can be found here.

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Earth Day bumper sticker give away.

Just in time for Earth Day, I have four of these great Motherwear bumper stickers to give away.

To enter to win one, leave a comment below by midnight on Earth Day (4/22/08).  I'll choose four winners in a random drawing.  Be sure to leave a 'real' email address so that I can contact you if you win.  Winners will be contacted by email.

And if you're wondering how 'green' breastfeeding is, check out this post from last year.  Happy Earth Day!

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Enter to win a $25 gift certificate to celebrate Motherwear's 25th anniversary!

* This contest is now closed, and the winner will be notified by email.  The correct answer was 1993.  Thanks for entering, everyone!

This year marks Motherwear's 25th year supporting nursing moms! 

To commemorate this event, I asked Motherwear to dig up copies of old catalog covers, and a few are shown here.  I'll be posting more over the course of the year.

To celebrate this milestone, each month this year I'll be giving away a $25 gift certificate.

This month, I'm asking you to identify the year the first catalog shown (shown top left) was published.    I'll make it a litttle easier by giving you three choices:  1989, 1993, or 1997.

To enter, leave a comment with your guess below.  I'll randomly pick a winner from the correct entries. 

Be sure to leave a "real" email address so I can contact you if you win.  U.S. addresses only, please.  Good luck!

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Join the next breastfeeding carnival: "Thrush and mastitis and blebs, oh my!"

Some of you have overcome some daunting breastfeeding problems like thrush, plugged ducts, Raynaud's, blebs, fast letdown, mastitis, low supply, nipple confusion, tongue ties, oversupply, breast refusal... the list could go on and on.  Here's your chance to write about it!

We're looking for posts that do two things this time:  1) tell the story of how you overcame a breastfeeding challenge, and 2) provide your links to your favorite online resources on that problem.  We hope that this will help other mothers find good information to help them through the same problem.

We'll be looking for posts that are:

• Well written and grammatically correct
• Thoughtful and directly on point for the carnival subject
• Submitted from blogs related to breastfeeding or parenting

Email me your submission by April 15th, 2008.  The carnival will be on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008.  Please note that, if your post is selected for inclusion by our regular group of bloggers, you will be asked to link to each of the other participants in the carnival.  We reserve the right to choose posts for inclusion.  Examples of past carnival posts can be found here.

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WOMAN Challenge registration is open.

This time last year a bunch of blogging friends and I formed a team for the Woman Challenge - a fitness challenge sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

We all encouraged readers to join, and I posted pictures (mine, and yours) from some of the walks we all did.  It was a good experience, and even if we didn't all complete the entire eight weeks, we did get out and moving a little more because of it.

This year I'm not going to form a team, but I did want everyone to know that you can now register for the Challenge.  Last year they sent out pedometers along with an information packet (not sure if they'll send them again this year).  I'll be doing it again.  Will you?

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Bumper sticker give away: Public Health begins with Breastfeeding

Sorry, this contest is now closed.  I've notified the winners by email.

I have five of these great bumper stickers from the Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition to give away.  They say "Public Health Begins with Breastfeeding." 

To enter to win one, leave a comment below.  Please be sure to leave a "real" email address so I can contact you if you've won.  International addresses are fine for this one.  If you don't win one, you can purchase one in their shop.

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Do you have questions about increasing milk supply?

I'm planning out a podcast interview with Diana West about her new book (out later this year) Making More Milk.  Diana is the founder of the the Breastfeeding After Reduction website, an incredible resource for mothers who have had breast surgeries, and Low Milk Supply, a great resource on milk supply issues.

If you have non-urgent questions about how milk supply works, or how to make more milk, please leave them as comments below.  I'll work them into my questions for the interview!

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Guess what?

We did it!  The Mothers Milk Bank of New England won $10,000 in the Ideablob contest!  The official announcement was made today at an event in Boston.

In addition to the prize, the Milk Bank got some wonderful publicity, and the whole idea of donor milk banking got some exposure to people who had probably never heard of it.  It's such wonderful news.

Thank you many times over to everyone who voted, who encouraged friends and family to vote, who blogged about it, and who wished us luck!  You made a big difference for the milk bank and for families in our region.

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Check out Jen and Sinead's new projects.

Sinead, of Breastfeeding Mums, has been very busy.  A few months ago she launched B'Mums, a social networking site for mothers.  She's also created a great mp3 for pregnancy relaxation, which I got to hear while it was in development.  She's got the perfect voice and accent for a deep relaxation recording!  Sinead also just added a forum section to her blog, too.  Check it out!

You probably know that Jen, of The Lactivist, will do anything to raise money for the Mother's Milk Bank of Ohio.  You've probably seen her benefit t-shirts, and remember her run in with the Pork Board?  This time around, she's competing in a weight loss competition among search marketers.  They're all playing for charity and raising money through sponsorships.  The man and woman who lose the most compete in a vote, and the winner gets all the pledges for the charity of their choice.  Check it out here, and pledge!

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