Free Republic

LONDON -- A breast-feeding mother accidentally smothered her four-week old child aboard a United Airlines flight from Washington, D.C., to Kuwait, a British tabloid reported Tuesday. The Sun newspaper said that the mother, who it said was a 29-year-old Egyptian-born woman, fell asleep as she breast-fed on the jet and awoke to find that the child had been smothered. The paper said the plane was diverted to London's Heathrow in an attempt to save the baby's life. The paper cited an unnamed police source in its reporting. Scotland Yard confirmed that a United Airlines plane had been diverted to Heathrow...

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MDThere is more evidence that breastfeeding benefits moms as well as their babies.Breastfeeding was shown to significantly lower a woman's risk for developing metabolic syndrome in a study reported today by researchers with Kaiser Permanente.The longer the women in the study breastfed, the more protection they seemed to derive. Is Your Type 2 Diabetes Under Control? Get Your Health Score Insulin Resistance, Belly Fat Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of risk factors linked to both diabetes and heart disease, including elevated blood pressure, insulin resistance, and belly fat.The new study is one of the most rigorously...

A New Mexico woman kicked off an airplane at the Burlington International Airport three years ago for breast feeding her baby is suing Delta Air Lines. The Burlington Free Press says negotiations failed to reach a settlement between the Atlanta-based airline and Emily Gillette. On Wednesday Gillette filed suit in U.S. District Court in Burlington. Gillette was ordered off a Delta Connections plane by a flight attendant after twice refusing an order to cover up while she breast fed her baby prior to takeoff. Gillette's lawsuit says she felt "shame and embarrassed" after being ordered off the plane. Delta refused...

Yesterday, Emily Gillette filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Burlington, Vermont, setting the stage for a legal battle, according to the Burlington Free Press. Three years ago, Gillette, her husband, Brad, and their then 22-month-old daughter, River, were ordered to leave a plane at Vermont's Burlington International Airport. It was a New York-bound Delta Connections flight operated by Freedom Airlines. Gillette was nursing River when a flight attendant asked her to cover up. Gillette refused. The flight attendant asked again, offering a blanket. The then 27-year-old mother continued to refuse. The flight attendant "pointed to the exit...

FURIOUS debate has erupted in Sweden about a former beauty queen’s attack on the country’s drive for a genderless society, which she claims has turned men into “nappy-changing” sissies and women into frumps who “neglect their husbands’ needs”. Comments posted on the internet by Anna Anka, a former Miss Sweden living in California with her husband Paul Anka, the singer and songwriter, provoked howls of outrage from women. There were also cheers from men who agreed that the Scandinavian push for gender equality had gone too far with the recent emergence of males wishing to breastfeed their babies. Paul Anka...

When mom is away, most dads offer a crying newborn a bottle of milk, a pacifier, a pinkie finger. But a Swedish dad is embarking on an experiment that he hopes will allow him to soothe a baby with his own milk-filled breasts. Ragnar Bengtsson, a 26-year-old student at Stockholm University, is regularly breaking out a breast pump to induce lactation. Bengtsson is the father of a 2-year-old child, but he has no plans to nurse his toddler. Rather he wants to breast-feed future children and inspire other dads to offer their breasts as a way to bond with their...

Sculpture of Angelina Jolie Breastfeeding to Be Shown in Oklahoma Next Month Controversial celebrity sculptor Daniel Edwards has unveiled his latest work: a park-bench-sized statue of Angelina Jolie in the nude, double breastfeeding her twins. This artistic work of public indecency (she's not wearing pants!) is called "Landmark for Breastfeeding" and was inspired by Jolie's cover photograph on W magazine last year. Edwards decided that, in order to encourage more women to breastfeed and to raise global awareness of public nursing, he would depict one twin as African-American and the other as not, since that could totally happen in the...

A controversial new doll is leaving some parents wishing for the good old Cabbage Patch days. A Spanish toymaker known as Berjuan has developed a breast-feeding doll that comes with a special halter top its young "mothers" wear as they pretend to breast-feed their "babies." The halter top has daisies that cover the little girls’ nipples and come undone just as easily as the flaps of a nursing bra would. The doll — called Bebe Gloton, which translates as “gluttonous baby” — makes sucking noises as it "feeds."

Can someone … anyone … explain how it is possible for a woman who is breast-feeding while intoxicated to be arrested while a pregnant woman who drinks goes free? I am fed up with society’s hypocrisy when it comes to children, babies, or fetuses. There is no logical argument for there being a difference between a 7, 8, 9 month pregnant woman drinking, and a woman breast-feeding while drunk. This constant struggle to simply try and figure out what is/is not a baby and what is/is not abuse and neglect will have to come to a head sooner or later.

After her father Tim was diagnosed with colon cancer, Georgia Browne went on the Internet to research ways to help save him. That’s where she got a brilliant though a bit unconventional idea to breastfeed her dad: Georgia recalls. ‘I started researching on the internet immediately and found separate studies in America and Scandinavia both supporting the health benefits of breastmilk to cancer sufferers. ‘I watched the documentary and thought it was a really mad idea, if it was true,’ she says. ‘I started looking on the net and found research suggesting breastmilk helps kill cancer cells. ‘Finding out I...

*** “That was my least favorite thing I ever did in my whole life,” Washington writer Hanna Rosin says in a podcast conversation with three pals that accompanies her sure-to-be-controversial new feature, “The Case Against Breast Feeding,” on The Atlantic’s Web site. She’s talking about pumping breast milk – the grotesque ritual carried out behind closed office doors nationwide by beleaguered working mothers who are fully “committed” (as the lactation consultants put it) to the goal of long-term, exclusive breast-feeding. *** “It’s the moment that kind of brings together all the awfulness of being a modern mother,” she says. ***...

As I work with new mothers in the hospital, I often hear comments like, “nursing my baby scares me more than labor.” During pregnancy, you have probably been inundated with unwanted (and usually inaccurate) advice about breastfeeding, so it’s no wonder that you are terrified to nurse. These 20 simple tips will help you to relax, forget about the myths you have heard and enjoy your breastfeeding experience. 1. Get support Good support is imperative for new nursing mothers. The key is to find support from someone who really knows what they are talking about and from someone who is...

KETTERING, Ohio — Police in Ohio say a woman has been charged with child endangering after another motorist reported she was both breast-feeding a youngster and talking on a phone while driving. Police in the Dayton suburb of Kettering say the caller told them he saw the woman Thursday. Officer Michael Burke says authorities used a license plate number to track down 39-year-old Genine Compton. He said the woman told officers she was breast-feeding and wouldn't let her child go hungry. Burke said the legal concern is that Compton had a child in her lap while driving, not that she...

UNICEF spokesperson Salma Hayek nursing a baby in Sierra Leone. Hayek was in the West African country in September as part of her involvement in the fight against tetanus, one reason Sierra Leone has the highest infant and child death rate in the world. But I'm guessing her humanitarian efforts won't draw as much attention as the "Nightline " television footage that showed Hayek breast feeding. Bloggers, as expected, are going crazy. “There is a close enough view that I could count swallows!” exclaimed Tanya on Motherwear’s Breast Feeding Blog, who was “blown away” that the scene was shown on...

I caught a bit of Dennis Prager the other day, and he was talking about breastfeeding mothers alleging Facebook discrimination. Jenna Wortham, at her NY Times Blog reports: Facebook is standing firm on a policy that has led to the removal of some photos posted by women that show breastfeeding. The deletions have spurred Facebook members to stage protests both online and offline.Facebook maintains it is simply enforcing an existing no nudity policy. I didn't realize how widespread the Indignant Lactivist Movement was until I Googled the subject. A nice young blogger posted this on her site, along with some...

Protesting a Facebook ban on photographs of lactating breasts, mothers are staging a "nurse in'' today at the site's headquarters in downtown Palo Alto. A simultaneous "virtual protest" will be held online, when women change their standard Facebook snapshot to a photo of themselves nursing — or, in the spirit of the holidays, an image of Madonna with child. Even an image of any mammal feeding her young will do, say organizers with the group Mothers International Lactation Campaign. Facebook has removed these photos from members' albums and profiles, saying that displays of areola — the dark skin around the...

LAS CRUCES, N.M. -- A New Mexico infant is dead and another is getting treatment at a hospital for a rare illness called enterobacter sakazakii. The New Mexico Department of Health said the illness is sometimes associated with baby formula. A baby boy in Otero County has died from the bloodstream and central nervous system infection. Now the state is advising safe ways to feed infants, including breastfeeding. “We're doing lab tests right now we're working with the Centers for Disease Control, and the Food and Drug Administration to look at every possible avenue. Right now it hasn't been linked...

WASHINGTON -- Sources say Alaska Governor and Republican Vice-Presidential nominee persists in breastfeeding her youngest child, Trig Palin, in spite of the fact the scientists and economists agree that the practice will do nothing to drive down elevated milk prices or alleviate child hunger on a global scale. Palin, who declared October 2007 as Breastfeeding Awareness Month in Alaska, admitted earlier this year that she has been providing an unspecified amount of breast milk to her 4-month-old son. Dr. Michel Fromage, spokesman for Médecins Sans Intégrité, lashed out at the mother of five on Monday. "This woman's do-nothing 'solution' is...

A woman claims her weekend shopping trip was ruined when she decided to breastfeed her two-month-old daughter inside a trendy Vancouver clothing store. Manuela Valle, 34, said, while waiting for her husband Francisco to try on some clothes, clerks at H&M asked her to stop breastfeeding in an aisle, in accordance with store policy, and move to a private room out of other shoppers' sight. "One of the girls working on the shift came to me and told me that I was 'not allowed to do that in public,'" Valle recalled. "The clerk said [that] it was offensive to other...

Vatican plea to uncover Virgin Mary and show her breast-feeding baby Jesus By Simon Caldwell Last updated at 11:09 PM on 23rd June 2008 [...] ...artists later depicted the nursing Mary fully clothed because the Protestant reformers were generally critical of "the carnality and unbecoming nature of many sacred images". But Miss Scaraffia argued that later depictions had also diminished the Madonna’ s human side "that touches the hearts and faith of the devout". Miss Scaraffia said that when the early Christian artists represented the Virgin breast-feeding they had sought to reveal the reality of God's incarnation. [...] Images of...

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Headlines/frtHEAD02051208.htm

Breastfed babies are more intelligent than those weaned on formula milk, according to the most comprehensive study conducted on the issue. Doctors followed nearly 14,000 children over six and a half years and found that those who were breastfed fared significantly better in IQ tests. At the age of six and a half, children who had been exclusively breastfed scored 7.5 points higher in verbal intelligence tests and 5.9 points higher in overall IQ tests. Teachers also rated the breastfed children higher at reading, writing and solving mathematical problems. The finding, which confirms earlier research, raises the question of whether...

Dear Prudie, I am a first-time mother to a beautiful 11-week-old boy. Right after having him, I was visited in my hospital room by a "lactation consultant." This person pulled out my chart without asking me and said, "I see you had a breast reduction done 10 years ago. That was extremely selfish of you."

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power came under fire today for trying to hire a specialist who would be paid to show new and expectant mothers at the utility how to properly breastfeed their children. The plan to issue a DWP-funded "lactation services" contract drew howls from taxpayer advocate Walter Moore, who pointed out that the utility's five-member board voted just last week for a package of new rate hikes. "You couldn't make this up," he said. "This is such a rip off. You've got to wonder if somebody's cousin runs the lactation business." Lactation proposals are due...

Eat Fruits And Veggies While Breastfeeding And Baby Will Probably Like Them ScienceDaily (Dec. 4, 2007) — Moms, want your baby to learn to like fruits and vegetables? Breastfed babies whose mothers eat fruits and vegetables are more inclined to like those foods themselves, a new study has found. (Credit: iStockphoto/Amy Kimball) According to new research from the Monell Center, if you're breast feeding, you can provide baby with a good start by eating them yourself. And, offer your baby plenty of opportunities to taste fruits and vegetables as s/he makes the transition to solid foods by giving repeated feeding...

Not all children can harness the full goodness of their mother’s milk. Does breast-feeding a child boost its brain development and raise its intelligence? Only if the child carries a version of a gene that can harness the goodness of breast-milk, say researchers. The results add to the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate over intelligence, by showing how the two effects can interact. The question of whether people are born intelligent or made intelligent by their environment has been debated for decades. Research with identical twins separated at birth has shown that both genetics and rearing conditions are important in determining...

Gene 'links breastfeeding to IQ' The government advises breastfeeding for first six months A single gene influences whether breastfeeding improves a child's intelligence, say London researchers. Children with one version of the FADS2 gene scored seven points higher in IQ tests if they were breastfed. But the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study found breastfeeding had no effect on the IQ of children with a different version. The gene in question helps break down fatty acids from the diet, which have been linked with brain development. Seven points difference is enough to put the child in the top...

Woman takes out ad to sell breast milk 2 hours, 33 minutes ago CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - A woman who doesn't want her breast milk to go to waste has taken out a newspaper ad in hopes of selling it. Martha Heller, 22, of Tiffin, took out the ad in The Gazette, offering 100 ounces of her breast milk for $200 or the best offer. Heller said her freezer is overflowing with breast milk that she has pumped since August. Her 4-month-old daughter won't drink from a bottle and the supply is piling up. Heller now donates to the University...

BOSTON, (AP) -- An appeals court cleared the way Friday for a Harvard student to receive extra break time during a lengthy medical licensing exam so she can pump breast milk for her infant daughter. The state Appeals Court refused to overturn a decision issued by a single justice of the court last week allowing Sophie Currier, 33, the extra time. The decision clears the way for the woman to take the exam next week. The state Supreme Judicial Court already has declined to hear the case. Currier sued after the National Board of Medical Examiners said she could have...

Want to know about new laws and pending legislation that promotes breastfeeding? Advocates are working hard to protect women's right to breastfeed in public and to pump breastmilk at work. Others are promoting breastfeeding to supplant the $600 million per year the US W.I.C. program spends on infant formula, and are looking at putting enforcement teeth in the US commitment to the W.H.O.'s code on the Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes. You can find information on the latest legislation on the La Leche League page below (click the 'back' button to return to Breastfeeding.com): A Current Summary of Breastfeeding Legislation...

BOSTON, (AP) -- A Harvard student must be allowed extra break time during her nine-hour medical licensing exam so she can pump breast milk to feed her 4-month-old daughter, a Massachusetts appeals court judge ruled Wednesday. Sophie Currier, 33, sued after the National Board of Medical Examiners turned down her request to take more than the standard 45 minutes in breaks during the exam. Currier said she risks medical complications if she does not nurse her daughter, Lea, or pump breast milk every two to three hours. A Superior Court judge last week rejected Currier's request to order the board...

BOSTON (AP) — A judge rejected a Harvard student’s request Wednesday for extra break time during her nine-hour medical licensing exam so she could pump breast milk for her infant daughter. Sophie Currier, 33, sued after the National Board of Medical Examiners turned down her request to take more than the standard 45 minutes in breaks during the exam. She said that if she does not nurse her 4-month-old daughter, Lea, or pump breast milk every two to three hours, she risks medical complications. Norfolk Superior Court Judge Patrick Brady said Currier has other options, beyond asking the board to...

Washington - -- In an attempt to raise the nation's historically low rate of breast-feeding, federal health officials commissioned an attention-grabbing advertising campaign a few years ago to convince mothers that their babies faced real health risks if they did not breast-feed. It featured striking photos of insulin syringes and asthma inhalers topped with rubber nipples. Plans to run these blunt ads infuriated the politically powerful infant-formula industry, which hired a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a former top regulatory official to lobby the Health and Human Services Department. Not long afterward, department political appointees toned down...

In June, Brooke Ryan walked into a Nicholasville Road Applebee's restaurant to celebrate an anniversary lunch with her children. She walked out humiliated, in tears and without the lunch. But the incident over breast-feeding her 7-month-old son at Applebee's has spurred the soft-spoken 34-year-old to start a public awareness campaign on the rights of breast-feeding women in Kentucky. "On a small scale, I want Applebee's to change its policy," Ryan said. "On a large scale ... I want breast-feeding to be accepted." The dispute with Applebee's began June 14. Ryan chose a booth in the back of the restaurant away...

Breastfeeding in public will be a woman's right 12.06.07    New Bill: Expectant and new mothers would be protected from discrimination Nursing mothers will be allowed to breastfeed their babies wherever they like under new anti- discrimination laws announced yesterday. Restaurants, cafes and shops which tried to ban them would face court action and fines of up to £2,500. The move is a victory for pressure groups who have been asking for greater rights for mothers in the interests of better health for babies. It will mean that mothers of children up to a year old will be able...

CAIRO (Reuters) - Cairo's al-Azhar Islamic University on Monday suspended a lecturer who suggested that men and women work colleagues could use symbolic breastfeeding to get around a religious ban on being alone together. The lecturer, Ezzat Atiya, had drawn on Islamic traditions which forbid sexual relations between a man and a woman who has breastfed him to suggest that symbolic breastfeeding could be a way around strict segregation of males and females. But after controversy in the Egyptian and Middle East media, university president Ahmed el-Tayeb suspended Atiya pending an urgent investigation into his opinions, the Egyptian state news...

TOKYO - A Japanese proposal to urge mothers to breast-feed their babies and sing lullabies to children was scrapped after critics warned it was too intrusive, a news report said. ADVERTISEMENT The proposal, which would also have recommended parents limit their children's television viewing and promote age-appropriate morals, was to have been announced Friday by an education reform panel named by the government. But experts and some government officials said the measure was "beyond intrusive," and interfered in people's private lives, Kyodo News agency said Thursday, citing unnamed individuals close to the panel. Japanese breastfeeding rates are much lower than...

SANTA ANA - A woman who was forced to throw away her breast milk at an airport this month is fighting to change the way nursing mothers are treated in the changing world of high-security travel. Airport security agents in Las Vegas earlier this month banned Rachel Popplewell of Capistrano Beach from bringing her breast milk on a flight to California because she didn't have her baby with her. Popplewell, who says she followed all the rules for bringing liquids on a plane, sent a written complaint to the Transportation Security Administration, which oversees airport screening. "You should be allowed...

LONDON (Reuters) - Breast feeding has no impact on a child's intelligence, according to new research published on Wednesday. Although breast feeding has many advantages for children including reducing infections, respiratory illnesses and diarrhea, enhancing a child's intelligence does not appear to be among them. "Breast feeding has little or no effect on intelligence in children," Geoff Der of Britain's Medical Research Council, said in a report published online by The British Medical Journal. The researchers found that although breast-fed children scored higher on IQ tests this was because their mothers tended be more intelligent, better educated and provided a...

Breast milk may not be enough Janet Raloff A new study finds a high incidence of vitamin D deficiency in breast-fed babies, mostly during winter. Such a deficiency limits the body's use of calcium, which is essential for healthy bones and teeth. As part of a trial of iron supplementation, Ekhard E. Ziegler of the University of Iowa in Iowa City and his colleagues regularly took blood samples over 2 years from 84 newborns who were initially breastfed exclusively. The researchers noticed that few infants were getting supplemental vitamin D. The scientists evaluated vitamin D in the infants' blood. They...

NEW YORK (July 27) - "I was SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine," one person wrote. "I immediately turned the magazine face down," wrote another. "Gross," said a third.These readers weren't complaining about a sexually explicit cover, but rather one of a baby nursing, on a wholesome parenting magazine - yet another sign that Americans are squeamish over the sight of a nursing breast, even as breast-feeding itself gains more support from the government and medical community.Babytalk is a free magazine whose readership is overwhelmingly mothers of babies. Yet in a poll of more...

July 28, 2006 -- New moms should breastfeed exclusively for six months to help protect their babies against developing food allergiesallergies later on, one of the nation's leading allergy and asthmaasthma groups says. Solid foods of all types should be avoided for the first six months, and certain items -- like cow's milk, eggs, fish, and nuts -- should not be introduced until even later, according to a consensus statement on infant feeding released this week by the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI). "It is important to understand that we are talking about exclusive breastfeedingbreastfeeding, with no...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Children breast-fed as infants are less likely to wet the bed later on, researchers reported on Wednesday, probably because they have a developmental edge. There is strong evidence that in many cases bed-wetting can "result from delayed neurodevelopment," said the report from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey. "There is biological plausibility in inferring that breast-feeding protects against bed-wetting and our results show a strong statistical association" although not enough to prove a direct cause-effect, the study said. Breast-feeding is beneficial because of the role that certain fatty acids passed onto the...

Victoria's Secret welcomes breast-feeding protesters Sunday, July 02, 2006 Christopher Evans Plain Dealer Reporter Westlake- Lactation and lacy lingerie were the subjects of a national nurse-in Saturday as breast-feeding mothers across the country let their kids chug-a-lug in front of Victoria's Secret stores. Fifteen mothers armed with hungry babies gathered on the sidewalk outside the Crocker Park Victoria's Secret store in Westlake where scantily clad mannequins seemed delighted by the peaceful, half-hour demonstration. "It's kind of ironic that Victoria's Secret, which plasters breasts everywhere, is offended at seeing breasts used for their intended purpose," said Anna Mauser-Martinez, who organized the...

(AP) RACINE, Wis. -- A woman offended when Victoria's Secret staff gave her only the option of an employee restroom in which to nurse her baby organized a nursing protest in front of the store. About 20 women and children came out in support of Rebecca Cook in front of the Victoria's Secret store at the Regency Mall in Racine on Saturday. Cook said she was shopping at the store with a friend last week when she asked to use a dressing room where she could nurse her daughter. When she was told no room was available, she offered to...

Warning: Public health officials have determined that not breast-feeding may be hazardous to your baby's health. There is no black-box label like that affixed to cans of infant formula or tucked into the corner of magazine advertisements, at least not yet. But that is the unambiguous message of a controversial government public health campaign encouraging new mothers to breast-feed for six months to protect their babies from colds, flu, ear infections, diarrhea and even obesity. In April, the World Health Organization, setting new international bench marks for children's growth, for the first time referred to breast-feeding as the biological norm....

A total of 3,738 nursing mothers yesterday participated in the "Sabay-Sabay, Sumuso sa Nanay" project at the San Andrex Complex in Malate, Manila, shattering the Guinness world record for the most number of women breastfeeding simultaneously. The event erased the previous Guinness record of 1,130 nursing mothers established in Berkeley, California on Aug. 3, 2002. Women from Manila’s six districts participated in the simultaneous breastfeeding program which was aimed at raising public awareness on the importance of breastfeeding in averting maternal and child diseases and mortality. The event emphasized the recommendation that infants should be breastfed exclusively up to six...

WASHINGTON -- Breast-feeding is less frequent among mothers who get federal help from the Women, Infants and Children program, known as WIC, congressional investigators said Wednesday. The General Accountability Office didn't criticize WIC, which distributes free formula but also heavily promotes breast-feeding. Even outside the WIC program, breast-feeding in the United States fell short of federal goals, the report said. Instead, investigators said limits are needed on advertising by infant formula companies. Babies who are breast-fed are less likely to develop diabetes, asthma and other health problems. Mothers get benefits, too; breast-feeding moms are considered less likely to get certain...

A PENRITH mum has appeared on national TV to explain why she is still breastfeeding her daughter who is nearly eight – and why she gave her older daughter breast milk as a ninth birthday present. Veronika Robinson appeared on the Channel 4 programme Extraordinary Breastfeeding as a passionate advocate of allowing children to decided when they give up breast milk. Mrs Robinson, a former journalist, her husband Paul, and their children, Bethany and Elizah, are all fans of organic food. Elizah is approaching her eighth birthday and is not happy at the prospect of giving up her daily feed....

State Sen. Deanna Hanna wants employers to provide a private room for breast-feeding mothers, saying they deserve better than having to seek privacy in bathroom stall. Hanna, D-Lakewood, said that accommodating nursing mothers would give infants a healthier start in life, cut down on missed days at work to care for sick infants and save on medical costs. "It's a good deal all the way around for babies, mothers, businesses and health-care costs," she said. She plans to introduce a bill during this legislative session. "The bill won't require anything elaborate or special, just a quiet room where mothers could...