Reflections from the CAPPA conference

I am attending the CAPPA conference this weekend in my very own city of Nashvegas (funny how it's in my city but still an hour away). Anyway, yesterday, Jack Newman started off the weekend with a bang or more like a whirlwind of "controversies in breastfeeding".

Quote of the day:
What do colostrum and formula have in common?


They are both liquids.


And then he went on to say that even that point is debatable. (Colostrum is often a very thick liquid.)

And I sat next to two very lovely ladies from Australia that commented that our obsession with pumping - which pump to buy, when to pump, pumping instead of breastfeeding, etc - is primarily an American obsession. In Australia, mothers and babies are together (only in the nursery if in intensive care), mothers have 24-hour access to their NICU babies, mothers have long maternity leave, mothers have true breastfeeding support and culturally, BREASTFEEDING is the norm.

Not that they don't have their own problems, have WHO code violators and aggressive marketing by companies looking to make money but they are doing some things right that we in "the states" could learn from. Now I want to go to Australia - maybe I will try to go to the Hot Milk conference one year. That would make a fun vacation!

I'll post more about the conference later!

My new favorite Quote

I went to a dinner in celebration of World Breastfeeding Week on Tuesday hosted by the Tennessee Lactation Coalition and the Cumberland Pediatric Foundation. The speakers were Margreete Johnston, MD, IBCLC and Julie Ware, MD, AAP Chief Breastfeeding Coordinator. Both did a fabulous job and spoke on important topics. Dr. Ware ended her talk with my new favorite quote - but only the first half of it. I found it in it's entirety and it is below. Enjoy.

Imagine that the world had invented a new "dream product" to feed and immunize everyone born on Earth. Imagine also that it was available everywhere, required no storage or delivery - and helped mothers to plan their families and reduce the risk of cancer.

Then imagine that the world refused to use it.

At the end of a century of unprecedented discovery and invention, even as scientists discover the origins of life itself, this scenario is not, alas, a fiction. The "dream product" is breastmilk, available to us all at birth, and yet we are not using it.
UNICEF

Food! Fashion! Panties?

Here's another goodie!

Can you spot me and P-Tizzle in the Fashion Show?

For the record, the point was to show the baby in the LLLI Licensed clothes not me or the sling but he was sick and I was NOT taking his cranky behind out of the sling.

If you weren't there you missed the historic LLLI fashion show. Not that big of a deal to me...but I would love to hear your thoughts. Should LLLI be licensing it's name to panties and bras and onesies? Was the model in a bra walking the stage during our tea in bad taste? Is this the wrong image of LLLI on the internet? Is it a forward-thinking modern image?

Post your thoughts and let me know. Especially those who are "outside" of LLLI - how does this affect your view of leaders, of LLLI, of what we do?

La Leche League - 50th Anniversary

Happy World Breastfeeding Week! My first gift to you is a video on the history of this organization that I am proud to be a part of. La Leche League is often seen as a "white woman's group" probably because it was started by 7 suburban White housewives. However, I really believe they want to support all mothers interested in breastfeeding. La Leche League is not perfect and has a lot of work and growing to do but they, we are working on it. I believe in La Leche League and am personally doing what I can to make it an organization for ALL women.

Notice the Mocha mama with the righteous Afro about half-way through the video. So apparently we have been going to LLL meetings since at least the 70s.