World Breastfeeding Week Edition
Happy World Breastfeeding Week!
What an exciting worldwide event WBW has become. The gold standard of activities is being enacted this week to promote the gold standard of infant feeding - from buttons and bows and coffee cups, to BreastFests and radio talkbacks and photography competitions and conferences everywhere. The simultaneous focus on breastfeeding around the world during this week is energizing. Health e-Learning is having A SPECIAL WBW OFFER for the month of August: a gift of one free course when you purchase three of our BreastEd courses. Our goal is to provide access to the gold standard in lactation education to the people who are helping mothers and babies all over the world.
Don't delay - take advantage of this great offer!! Enroll now at our website... join the hundreds of lactaton professionals who've gone before you and told us that this is the BEST education they've ever received. Breastfeeding With Confidence, by Sue Cox, IBCLC has been released just in time for World Breastfeeding Week. This 190-page soft-cover book has been written for mothers. It starts by explaining what used to happen in their mother's day and how and why that may now be different. What a great idea this is!! It's such a valuable chapter to give to their mother to read too to help her give the needed support. Other topics found in this book that are often neglected in books for mothers include a chapter on the changes a new baby will bring to the family, suggestions on discussions to have with her partner and tips on developing a supportive network. An excellent chapter discusses the first breastfeed and the following 48 hours. We all know how important this time is for future breastfeeding success, and this topic is particularly well handled, giving mothers (and fathers) the confidence they need to ask for what they know to be right. Common breastfeeding problems or concerns are addressed.
There are many outstanding features of this new book. It's very easy to read, the text frequently being broken up by things for mother to do (talk about, think about, seek out, etc), or dad to do, quotes from mothers who've experienced the situation being described, summaries of the important points, warning points for when help is needed and the most delightful pencil sketches illustrating points or just making the book a delightful read.
This book is top of a very short list of books I recommend for parents. I'd also recommend that Lactation Consultants and health professionals seeing pregnant and new mothers have several copies available for their clients to purchase - you won't have any regrets recommending this book.
Available for purchase from:
Prof Hale's website and Australian Breastfeeding Association website.
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WBW Featured Book:
Breastfeeding With Confidence
Confident mothers are empowered - what better advocates for breastfeeding can we ask for than lots of confident mothers?
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ILCA 2004 - A little feedback!
What a wonderful conference! There were, as usual, many outstanding speakers. This newsletter I'll mention two.
Examining Sudden Infant Death and Co-sleeping by Prof James McKenna was a very timely presentation, given the concerns and confusion health professionals are facing at the moment... and preventing co-sleeping is a barrier to exclusive breastfeeding - the gold standard! Prof McKenna reported that infants sleeping alone in a separate room are twice as likely to die of SIDS as infants sleeping in a room with an active adult. There are several styles of co-sleeping, co-bedding being only one. The critical factor is that the infant should be within sensory range of an active adult. Another statistic I found alarming is that more babies sleeping in rooms away from their parents die in house fires each year (because their parents can't get to them) then die of SIDS.
Prof McKenna reported that bedsharing and breastfeeding are mutually reinforcing - mothers who breastfeed are more likely to bedshare, and the bedsharing baby will breastfeed more. Another speaker I'd like to highlight was Dr Patricia Martens, a researcher from Canada. Traditionally research theory is poorly understood by Lactation Consultants, as evidenced in the IBLCE exam results each year. The Sunday morning plenary session she led 'From Anecdote to Evidence: Working Together for Best Practice' was the most illuminating and easist understood session on this topic I've ever attended (and I've attended a few!). Unfortunately this is not a topic I can cover well in the newsletter but I do highly recommend purchase of the tape (or DVD if it has the video of the presentation). Dr Martens research-aerobics (I kid you not!) make this topic memorable for the novice and a great teaching tool for the experienced who are trying to explain it to others. Tapes of both Prof McKenna's and Dr Martens' presentations will be available from either ILCA or http://www.audiotapes.com - this is a really good, inexpensive way to get professional development if you couldn't make it to the conference.
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