Posts

Posted on

Breastfeeding is eco-friendly.

–This post is part of our 10-year anniversary series “Breastfeeding is…”—

Breastfeeding is eco-friendly.

Planetary protection has never been more crucial, and the undeniable relationship between planetary health and human health has never been more evident.

In November 2022, world leaders, policy-makers and delegates from nearly 200 countries attended the COP27 UN climate summit, held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

Fabrication of Bodies Joined by a Molecule of Air(2022), by Invisible Flock and Jon Bausor, manufactured by MDM Props Limited in Lebanon, represented by Architect & Engineer Karim Attoui. ©Courtesy of Invisible Flock. https://invisibleflock.com/portfolio/bodies-joined/

Presenters made poignant remarks about the climate crisis we find ourselves in.

“We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator,” António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations said.

Sherry Rehman, Minister of Climate Change, Pakistan argued that  “The dystopia has already come to our doorstep …”

Mark Brown, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, shared, “Our survival is being held to ransom at the cost of profit and an unwillingness to act despite the ability to do so.”

On Decarbonization Day of the summit, Dr. Abla Al Alfy convened a panel of speakers who presented on the importance of the 1,000 Golden Days and the relationship between the climate crisis and mother baby health. [You can access the United Nations Egypt’s recording here which starts at 19 minutes in.]

Dr. Nevein Dous, UNICEF health specialist, covered infant mortality rates, micronutrient deficiencies, mental health challenges, among other global health challenges and called for the integration of services rather than siloing health strategies.

WHO

Frederika Meijer with UNFPA Egypt highlighted UNFPA’s work confronting medical violence and reducing the country’s cesarean section rate which soars over 60 percent.

Meijer brought light to the need to create resilient health systems that will withstand the inevitable shocks of the climate crisis.  She noted the important role skilled midwives play in the reduction of unnecessary c-sections, giving way to the work of Dr. Kawther Mahmoud, President of the Nurses Syndicate, Assistant Undersecretary for Nursing and head of the Central Department for Nursing in Egypt, who helps lead the national plan for the midwife.

Many presenters emphasized the importance of family planning counseling and the environmental and health implications of pregnancy spacing.

Dr. Naeema Al-Gasseer’s remarks drew attention to a recent WHO report which states that “Almost the entire global population (99%) breathes air that exceeds WHO air quality limits, and threatens their health.”

Dr. Camilla Kingdon, President of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, further described that 26 percent of child deaths under 5 years of age have an element of environmental cause like heat waves, water scarcity, vector-borne diseases and flooding. UNICEF has identified that air pollution will be the leading cause of death for children by 2050, she shared. Additionally, there is a clear link between air pollution and miscarriage. Dr. Kingdon went on to describe the prevalence of visible air pollution particles on the placenta.

WHO

In connection to these harrowing accounts, Healthy Children Project’s Dr. Karin Cadwell presented research on the environmental impact of powdered baby formula milks in North America. Read about that work here.

Healthy Children Project’s Dr. Kajsa Brimdyr acknowledged the mess we are in and noted how many solutions that may contribute to planetary and population health are expensive and complex. Skin-to-skin contact (SSC) in the first hour after birth though, is simple and easy, inexpensive, is appropriate for all dyads, and touts priceless benefits.

Brimdyr noted just some of the benefits: SSC in the first hour after birth decreases infant mortality by 25 percent in low birth weight (LBW) infants, decreases transfers to the NICU,  decreases maternal stress and depression, improves paternal parental stress, and allows baby to self attach to the breast improving maternal confidence in breastfeeding and increasing breastfeeding rates overall.

The effects of SSC in the first hour extend far beyond the first hours, the first days and first weeks of life. Feldman et al. (2014) followed mothers and their premature infants who had been in SSC and control groups for 10 years. They found that children who had been in the SSC group had better cognitive development, better autonomic nervous system functioning, and mother–child interactions were more reciprocal 10 years later.

Photo credit: United States Breastfeeding Committee

Silke Mader of the European Foundation for the Care of Newborn Infants (EFCNI) and her colleagues are fighting for SSC and breastfeeding support for all dyads. Mader calls for a zero separation policy which is supported by evidence even in the context of the pandemic, she reported. Mader added that fathers and partners are not second-class citizens and should be included in the policies that help shape proper parent infant bonding.

As the climate emergency becomes more and more bleak, breastfeeding is a safeguard for infant and young child health. Read our coverage on infant and young child feeding in emergencies (IYCF-E)  in Prioritizing infant and young child feeding in emergencies during National Preparedness Month and beyond and National Preparedness Month: the U.S.’s deficit in Infant and Young Child Feeding preparedness during emergencies.

COP27 held the first-ever Youth-led Climate Forum ensuring that young people have a place in the conversation about the climate crisis. More on that here.

 

More resources to explore  

RCPCH Climate Change Working Group

Baby Milk Action’s coverage on COP27

Breastfeeding can help tackle climate crisis but it’s on governments, not mums to save the world

The climate crisis is a health crisis short video

 

——–

As part of our celebration, we are giving away an online learning module with contact hours each week. Here’s how to enter into the drawings:

Email info@ourmilkyway.org with your name and “OMW is 10” in the subject line.

This week, in the body of the email, tell us: Where have you seen predatory marketing of breastmilk substitutes?

Subsequent weeks will have a different prompt in the blog post.

We will conduct a new drawing each week over the 10-week period.  Please email separately each week to be entered in the drawing. You may only win once. If your name is drawn, we will email a link with access to the learning module. The winner of the final week will score a grand finale swag bag.

Posted on

Breastfeeding is part of a continuum. 

–This post is part of our 10-year anniversary series “Breastfeeding is…”—

Breastfeeding is part of a continuum.

It has been hypothesized that starting around nine weeks of fetal development, the pattern and sequence of intrauterine movements of the fetus seem to be a survival mechanism, which is implemented by the newborn’s patterns of movement during the first hour after birth  (described as the 9 stages)  when skin-to-skin with the mother to facilitate breastfeeding.

Photo credit United States Breastfeeding Committee

This very behavior refutes the idea that breastfeeding is “an adjunct to birth” as it is generally viewed in maternity care settings in America.

Not only are human babies hardwired to progress through 9 stages and self attach to the breast, mammalian bodies are hardwired to produce milk too.

Around 16 weeks of pregnancy, the body starts to prepare for breastfeeding. This phase, called Lactogenesis I is when colostrum begins to be created. During Lactogenesis II, the secretion of copious milk follows the hormonal shift triggered by birth and the placenta delivery. After this phase, milk production must be maintained through a supply-and-demand-like system. [Neville 2001]

Even before a pregnancy is achieved, individuals are being influenced by the infant feeding culture that surrounds them, consciously or subconsciously laying a foundation for how they feel about feeding their own babies.

Pat Hoddinott’s, et al study found that women who had seen successful breastfeeding regularly and perceived this as a positive experience were more likely to initiate breastfeeding.

Exposure to prenatal breastfeeding education also affects breastfeeding outcomes. Irene M. Rosen and colleagues found that women who attended prenatal breastfeeding classes had significantly increased breastfeeding at 6 months when compared to controls.

Photo by Luiza Brain

Mode of birth and birth experiences influence infant feeding too, for both members of the dyad.

A growing body of evidence shows that birth by cesarean section is associated with early breastfeeding cessation.

Intrapartum exposure to the drugs fentanyl and synOT is associated with altered newborn infant behavior, including suckling, while in skin-to-skin contact with mother during the first hour after birth. [Brimdyr, et al 2019]

What’s more, the authors of Intrapartum Administration of Synthetic Oxytocin and Downstream Effects on Breastfeeding: Elucidating Physiologic Pathways found “No positive relationships between the administration of synthetic oxytocin and breastfeeding.” They comment, “Practices that could diminish the nearly ubiquitous practice of inducing and accelerating labor with the use of synthetic oxytocin should be considered when evaluating interventions that affect breastfeeding outcomes.”

Photo by Olivia Anne Snyder on Unsplash

In Transdisciplinary breastfeeding support: Creating program and policy synergy across the reproductive continuum, author Miriam Labbok takes a detailed look at “the power and potential of synergy between and among organizations and individuals supporting breastfeeding, the mother-child dyad, and reproductive health to increase sustainable breastfeeding support.”

Labbok points out that a paradigm shift on the issues in the reproductive continuum – family planning, pregnancy and birthing and breastfeeding– is needed.

“These are issues that are intimately, biologically, gender linked in women’s lives, and yet ones that are generally divided up to be addressed by a variety of different professional disciplines,” Labbok begins.  “Despite the impact of child spacing on birthing success, of birthing practices on breastfeeding success, and of breastfeeding on child spacing, we are offered family planning services by a gynecologist, birth attendance by an obstetrician or midwife, and baby care by a pediatrician. Having these ‘silos’ of care, each with its own paradigm and priorities, may lead to conflicting messages, and hence, may undermine the search for mutuality in goals, and collaboration.”

One such initiative looking to deconstruct siloed care is the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative which includes standards and goals for birthing practices, for breastfeeding-friendly communities, and guidance for birth spacing, in addition to reconfirming the original Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding, in recognition that breastfeeding occurs along a continuum.

Source: United States Breastfeeding Committee

1,000 Days emphasizes how breastfeeding fits within the global picture as a crucial part of a whole.

In the U.S. context, the 1,000 Days initiative recognizes comprehensive health coverage, comprehensive guidelines on nutrition during pregnancy, lactation, and early childhood for women in the first 1,000 days, paid family  and medical leave policy for all workers, and investments to ensure parents and caregivers can access good nutrition as solutions to a well nation and a well world.

 

——–

As part of our celebration, we are giving away an online learning module with contact hours each week. Here’s how to enter into the drawings:

Email info@ourmilkyway.org with your name and “OMW is 10” in the subject line.

This week, in the body of the email, please share with us some or all of your birth stor(ies).

Subsequent weeks will have a different prompt in the blog post.

We will conduct a new drawing each week over the 10-week period.  Please email separately each week to be entered in the drawing. You may only win once. If your name is drawn, we will email a link with access to the learning module. The winner of the final week will score a grand finale swag bag.

Posted on

Breastfeeding is a human right.

–This post is part of our 10-year anniversary series “Breastfeeding is…”—

Breastfeeding is a human right. 

Breastfeeding is often presented as a choice, but in many societies, infant feeding is impacted by systems of oppression and lack of supportive measures like paid parental leave, rather than simply being a product of parental choice. 

Source: United States Breastfeeding Committee

Michigan Breastfeeding Network Executive Director Shannon McKenney Shubert, MPH, CLC has put it this way:  “In my 12-year career in the field of human milk feeding, I have never once met a birthing parent who ‘chose not to breastfeed.’ In this country, whether to breastfeed is not a choice. In this country, whether to breastfeed is a question of ‘Within all the systems of oppression that I navigate, what is the best combination of things I can do to ensure the survival of my baby, myself and the rest of my family?’” 

Access to unbiased information and support and protection to make informed decisions about proper infant and young child nutrition is a core human rights obligation and must be projected as such in international human rights law, as articulated in a Global Breastfeeding Collective (GBC) convening this fall. 

What’s more, children have the rights to life, survival and development, and the highest attainable standard of health, all protected under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

More specifically, under Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, children and families explicitly have the right to have information about the advantages of breastfeeding and to be supported in making choices about the best nutrition for children as part of the right to health and health care.

Source: United States Breastfeeding Committee

Strangely, children’s rights and women’s sexual and reproductive rights communities often find themselves polarized on the issue. Because the mother and child are often regarded as separate entities, issues that impact women and children can appear as though one right is above the other. But a mother and her child should be extolled as an inseparable dyad, and human rights and health advocates must continue to articulate and emphasize this important point. Breastfeeding as a human right is not an either/or argument.

Source: United States Breastfeeding Committee

Marcus Stahlhofer, WHO Maternal and Newborn and Adolescent Health and Aging, lays out how approaching breastfeeding as a human right:

  •  helps to provide legitimacy and accountability for state or government action or inaction and helps set benchmarks to assess these actions,
  • enhances multi-stakeholder engagement through indivisibility and interdependence of human rights including involvement of global, regional and national human rights mechanisms,
  • elicits a paradigm shift that transitions from nutrition and health needs to legal entitlements and associated obligations, and 
  • empowers people to demand that their rights are not negatively interfered with, such as through breastmilk substitutes and commercial milk formula (BMS/CMF) marketing.


Stahlhofer has pointed out that BMS companies use human rights arguments effectively by drawing on ideas around freedom of expression, right to intellectual property, women’s rights to autonomy, bodily integrity, and free choice to justify their predatory practices. 

There are key human rights tools and mechanisms that health advocates can employ specific to infant feeding. Some of them include:

The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM) issued a position statement in regard to breastfeeding as a human right. 

“The ABM asserts that it is a moral imperative to protect the mother’s and child’s basic rights to breastfeed for their own health and wellness, as well as that of the nations in which they reside. Given the importance of breastfeeding and human milk in reducing infant mortality, governments should include breastfeeding as a leading health indicator and work toward eliminating disparities in breastfeeding outcomes and increasing rates of breastfeeding,” it reads in part. 

The White Ribbon Alliance (WRA) Charter on the Universal Rights of Women and Newborns created a proclamation on the universal rights of women and newborns. Find that here.  

You can also explore GBC’s collection of documents that support breastfeeding as a human right here.

Source: United States Breastfeeding Committee

——–

As part of our celebration, we are giving away an online learning module with contact hours each week. Here’s how to enter into the drawings:

Email info@ourmilkyway.org with your name and “OMW is 10” in the subject line.

This week, in the body of the email, tell us: What does breastfeeding support look like in your community?

Subsequent weeks will have a different prompt in the blog post.

We will conduct a new drawing each week over the 10-week period.  Please email separately each week to be entered in the drawing. You may only win once. If your name is drawn, we will email a link with access to the learning module. The winner of the final week will score a grand finale swag bag.

Posted on

Breastfeeding is sacred. 

–This post is part of our 10-year anniversary series “Breastfeeding is…”—

Breastfeeding is sacred.

Photo by Anna B

Breastfeeding shows up in a myriad of religious texts, and across most religions, breastfeeding is encouraged and revered as a sacred act.

In Rabbinic texts “…nursing is more than food—it plays a key role in transmitting religion, values and culture,” BJ Woodstein BFC, IBCLC writes in her piece on breastfeeding and Judaism.

Photo by Kampus Production

Breastfeeding and the Baha ́ ’ı ́ Faith documents that “Baha ́’ı ́ Writings clearly endorse breast-feeding…the frequent use of the language of human lactation in positive symbolic terms identifies breastfeeding as a practice that is both dignified and worthy of juxtaposition with the sacred.”

In Chinese religious and philosophical culture, which includes the syncretism of Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and the theory of Yin and Yang, this is also true. In Taoism for example, it has been written that “the conditions of oceanic ecstasy correspond to the experience of symbiotic unity of a baby and its mother during the period of foetal development and of breast feeding.” [Tortchinov, 1996, p. 20]

Art by: Khou Vue
Courtesy of the Hmong Breastfeeding Coalition

Across most Native American groups, breastfeeding is revered as the first sacred food; their traditions have been largely passed down orally instead of documented in sacred texts.

Religious dietary rules and their potential nutritional and health consequences further details how most major religions encourage prolonged breastfeeding and other feeding indications.

In Islam, “a woman who breastfeeds more than five times a day a child who is not hers before the age of 2 years becomes a ‘milk mother’ for this child, who is then acknowledged as a full sibling to the foster-mother’s other children. This prohibits any possibility of subsequent marriage between them (sura 4: ayat 23).” The authors note that these rules have implications for human milk banking in Islamic countries.

Photo by Fatima Yusuf

Sucharita Sarkar’s article Pregnancy, Birthing, Breastfeeding and Mothering: Hindu Perspectives from Scriptures and Practices looks at the regulations of pregnancy, birthing, and breastfeeding in Ayurvedic treatises, and at representations of mothering in Vedic and Puranic texts.

Sarkar begins “Vedic and Ayurvedic texts glorify breastfeeding and project it as a natural attribute and sacred duty of good mothers. The Atharva Veda compares lactating breasts to pitchers full of divine nectar. Ayurvedic treatises like the Sushruta Samhita eulogise the nourishing powers of breastmilk and, by extension, of the lactating vessels, that is, the mother:

May the four oceans of the earth contribute to the secretion of milk in thy breasts for the purpose of improving the bodily strength of the child. O, thou with a beautiful face, may the child, reared on your milk, attain a long life, like the gods made immortal with drinks of ambrosia.”

Photo by Smadar Bergman

Where fasting is relevant, there are special considerations for individuals who are pregnant and/or lactating. Ramadan Mubarak: Breastfeeding in Islam and Religious Fasting and Breastfeeding cover many of those distinctions.

Author Beatriz shares about her initiation into Santeria– an amalgamation of Yoruba beliefs and Catholicism– as a nursing mother in this Brown Girls Out Loud piece.

Photo by Luiza Braun

With more than half of the world’s population practicing some kind of religion, religious interventions can be an effective way to support breastfeeding.

One study found that Catholic women are more at risk to intend and practice exclusive formula feeding than women of other religious affiliations.

In partnership, the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control Bureau of Community Health and Chronic Disease Prevention, Eat Smart Move More South Carolina, Palmetto Health Richland Hospital, and the South Carolina Breastfeeding Coalition created a toolkit entitled Creating a Mother-Friendly Environment for your Faith-Based Organization.

Buddhist nuns on the move: an innovative approach to improving breastfeeding practices in Cambodia assessed the impact of Buddhist nuns and wat grannies on breastfeeding behavior in rural Cambodia and found an 11 percent increase in breastfeeding initiation in the first hour after birth when mothers interacted with the nuns.

——–

Photo by Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz

As part of our celebration, we are giving away an online learning module with contact hours each week. Here’s how to enter into the drawings:

Email info@ourmilkyway.org with your name and “OMW is 10” in the subject line.

This week, in the body of the email, please share any experiences that you have had with infant feeding in a religious context.

Subsequent weeks will have a different prompt in the blog post.

We will conduct a new drawing each week over the 10-week period.  Please email separately each week to be entered in the drawing. You may only win once. If your name is drawn, we will email a link with access to the learning module. The winner of the final week will score a grand finale swag bag.

Posted on

Breastfeeding is art.

–This post is part of our 10-year anniversary series “Breastfeeding is…”—

Breastfeeding is art.

Up and coming artist: Kaitlyn Faircloth’s 3 year old. Faircloth writes: “Thank you for helping me raise the next generation of lactation professionals! My 3.5 year old has watched many lessons with me on my journey to obtaining my CLC and she really enjoyed learning about the benefits of skin to skin in the first hour She drew this picture this morning and said ‘Look mama! It’s a baby tummy to tummy with their mama!’ She said the scribbles under their heads is all the love from snuggling. ”

Throughout human history, breastfeeding has been depicted in art. In fact, the milk of a goddess was thought by ancient peoples to be the source of our galaxy and has been realized into several artworks like The Origin of the Milky Way by Jacopo Tintoretto (c. 1518-1594).

Snake Goddess and Child, a sculpture extolling breastfeeding, dates back to Ubaid 4 Period (5500–4000 B.C.)

Dr. Rebecca M. Bender writes about her observations “regarding the very frequent and detailed depictions of breastfeeding in the artwork gracing the Prado’s walls.”

Today, artists continue to add to a robust collection that captures the essence of breastfeeding, what one might argue is the core experience of human life, as Healthy Children Project’s Cindy Turner-Maffei has articulated.

In celebration of breastfeeding expressed through visual arts, we’ve compiled a list of contemporary artists and their work below. For more, you can follow @breastfeedingart on Instagram which features an eclectic compilation of breastfeeding art throughout history to present day.

 

——–

As part of our celebration, we are giving away an online learning module with contact hours each week. Here’s how to enter into the drawings:

Email info@ourmilkyway.org with your name and “OMW is 10” in the subject line.

This week, in the body of the email, tell us: How do you envision maternal child health will have changed in the next decade?

Subsequent weeks will have a different prompt in the blog post.

We will conduct a new drawing each week over the 10-week period.  Please email separately each week to be entered in the drawing. You may only win once. If your name is drawn, we will email a link with access to the learning module. The winner of the final week will score a grand finale swag bag.

Proudly powered by WordPress