Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Breastfeeding News weblog is back! I stopped maintaining this breastfeeding news 'blog back in the spring while I concentrated on a political campaign here in Alberta. The campaign is over, and I'm back posting again. -- Jodine

Monday, December 11, 2006

BCNG Portals Page: "Banking on mother's milk Hospital gives moms a healthy alternative
By Martin van den Hemel, Staff Reporter, Richmond Review
Dec 09 2006

New mothers in Richmond will now be able to make healthy withdrawals from a bank of donated breast milk.
For the past 30 years, B.C. Women's Milk Bank has been providing pasteurized donor milk to high risk and ill children when their moms are not able to provide enough breast milk.
"Entering into this partnership with B.C. Women's Hospital means that we, at Richmond Hospital, can offer our new moms more options and more support at a crucial time in the lives of their children," said Richmond Hospital spokesperson Viviana Zanocco.
The pasteurized milk is provided with a doctor's or a midwife's prescription. Recipients outside of B.C. Children's Hospital or B.C. Women's Hospital are charged a processing fee.
Milk is collected from donors who are healthy moms who have completed an extensive screening process and who are able to produce more milk than their babies need." (Entire article)
[Congrats to the BC Women's Milk Bank on this new partnership, a significant development as Canada's only milk bank. - JC]
Raisingkids: News - Daily Parenting News: Do epidurals affect breastfeeding?: "Do Epidurals Affect Breastfeeding? December 11 2006

Survey suggests women twice as likely to give up breastfeeding
Here's another survey statistic that seems designed to make women feel bad about their pain-relief decisions during labour. A report out by the International Breastfeeding Journal suggests that women who elect to have an epidural during childbirth end up paying for that decision with greater difficulty in breastfeeding.
The survey of 1280 women found that women who had epidurals were more likely to experience difficulty breastfeeding in the first few days after giving birth than women who didn't have an epidural. Six months on, women who'd had an epidural were much more likely to have given up on breastfeeding with only 53% still breastfeeding as opposed to 72% of women who hadn't had an epidural."...