Breast-feeding summit
There's consensus among health experts that breast milk is best for baby: It prevents childhood obesity and a host of infant illnesses, they say.
But somehow that knowledge hasn't translated into high breast-feeding rates in the San Joaquin Valley.
When the University of California at Davis Human Lactation Center and the California WIC Association conduct a yearly survey of breast-feeding rates in hospitals, Valley hospitals routinely rank at the bottom.
An analysis by the groups made public Wednesday shows 82% of mothers start breast-feeding during their hospital stay, yet only 34%, on average, are exclusively breast-feeding when they left the hospital. To see the yearly report on breast-feeding and county facts, go to the California WIC Association Web site.
That's why hospital officials throughout the San Joaquin Valley on Wednesday sent people to a full-day summit sponsored by WIC and the Central California Regional Obesity Prevention Program. The goal: To help increase the number of Valley hospitals with policies that encourage new moms to exclusively breast-feed babies while in the hospital.
Researchers say hospitals that adopt baby-friendly breast-feeding policies see their rates of exclusive breast-feeding soar.
Baby-friendly breast-feeding hospitals adopt policies and practices that support women to breast feed, such as training staff to help women, giving breast-feeding women no formula while in the hospital unless there's a medical need and not sending free formula samples home with breast-feeding moms.
It will be interesting to see how many hospitals adopt policies --- and their exclusive breast-feeding rates next year.
Comments:
Mothers Breastfeeding their children has been replaced by artificial baby milk bottle feeding in our central valley and in many other communities in the US. Artifical baby milk is a profitable business for a huge formula industry. They have spent billions convincing many Central Caifornians that their artificial product is just as good as mother's breastmilk, when there are many health risks associated with artificial baby milk feeding. When babies are not breastfed, babies have higher rates of illness including ear infections, GI and respiratory infections, allergies, asthma, obesity and diabetes and their mothers have higher rates of breast and cervical cancer and higher energy costs for packaging, transporting and heating. Unfortunately artificial baby milk producers do not have to pay for the higher health care costs resulting from their product, they only profit from the artifical baby milk sales.
Posted by: Laurie Misaki at July 21, 2009 4:41 PM
I thought that it was interesting to note that a hospitals midacal rates had a direct correlatin to the negative impact on their exclusive breastfeeding rates.
Does this mean that benefits linked to medical encourage bottlefeeding? Perhaps we will see a positive change as WIC makes changes to endorse exclusive breastfeeding. I am glad that they will be providing support to encourage breastfeeding, because not only does this ensure healthy babies, but reaches beyond that to encourage bonding and attachment, which is a huge issue in pediatric mental health, as well as all the association of obesity to non-breastfed babies, with the childhood obesity issues today.
Posted by: Kriss Steele at July 27, 2009 4:07 PM
Once you start, keep in mind that nursing shouldn’t be painful. When your baby latches on, pay attention to how your breasts feel. If the latching on hurts, break the suction then try again. You should nurse quite frequently, as the more you nurse the more quickly your mature milk will come in and the more milk you'll produce
Posted by: breastfeeding tips at August 7, 2009 2:01 PM
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