breast milk

Lots of moms are fond of nursing, but it's hard to find a woman who loves to pump. We asked Gina Ciagne, a certified lactation counselor and director of breastfeeding and consumer relations at Lansinoh Laboratories for advice on cutting down a mother's pump time.

• Change the settings throughout the day. Baby's feed differently throughout the day and the breast adjusts to the lil one's demand. A pump with adjustable settings, like the Affinity ($160), allows mama to mimic the tot's nursing rhythms.
• Massage the breast. "Loosening up beforehand, and during pumping, can help guide the milk down a little bit. "When nursing, mom may feel the baby put her hand on the breast, almost feel like pinching. The baby is sending sensory signals to mom’s breast to let the milk down. An extra little massage may help with stimulation."
• Double pump. It may sound obvious, but double pumping allows mama to capture every last drop of milk that her body lets down.
• Warm it up. A baby's mouth is warm – 98.6 degrees to be exact – so warming up the flanges will help speed up the let down process.
• Keep spare parts. A spare set of parts at work (or wherever you plan to do your pumping) will alleviate stress and worry when some pieces are inevitably left at home.

Working moms who breastfeed have to keep their milk supply while they are on the corporate clock. The health care reform bill requires employers to provide nursing moms with space and time to pump, so we asked Gina Ciagne, a certified lactation counselor and director of breastfeeding and consumer relations at Lansinoh Laboratories, for some tips!

• Nurse as often as possible before returning to work. According to Ciagne, "Any time that (mom) and the baby are together, put baby on the breast to establish supply."
• Get a "very good, strong, effective double pump." It will help stimulate both breasts simultaneously, signaling that it is time to let the milk down, and ultimately encourage the body to produce more milk for the next session.
• Learn how to use the pump prior to returning to work. Become familiar with the various parts (of the pump) so there are no surprises during a blocked-out period of pumping time.
• Build up a freezer stash before returning to work. Milk supplies often dip once a mama returns to work. Knowing that there is a healthy supply in the freezer will reduce stress, which could further impact milk production.
• Mimic the baby's feeding schedule. If the baby feeds every two hours, mom should be pumping every two hours. While many workplace environments are not conducive to such frequent pumping, according to Ciagne, even "if she can only get five minutes of pumping in, it's better than skipping a session. If she skips a pumping session, it says to her body 'don’t make the milk next time.'"

It turns out that breast milk is to babies what a Snicker's candy bar is to adults...it "satisfies." In an effort to increase nursing in a state where breastfeeding rates are low, the Ohio Department of Health launched a Help Me Grow campaign that included some billboards playing off the ever-popular "Got Milk" campaign. Two adorable babies are featured on the billboards — one chubby cheeked child and another tot (perhaps caught mid-meal) with breast milk dripping down his or her mouth.

Once the ads went up, people across the nation responded with strong opinions for or against the artwork. The hoopla has been covered by television, radio, and online outlets, but what do mothers think? Women see this type of thing on a daily basis in their own homes living with their children and think nothing of it. Is it such a big deal that the picture shows liquid gold spilling from the kid's lips? Chime in!

When it comes to homemade cheese, is breast best? That's what Daniel Angerer thinks. The chef, who owns Klee Brasserie with wife Lori Mason, has garnered attention for, among other things, squaring off against Bobby Flay in Iron Chef America. But lately, he's been making headlines for a different reason: serving cheese made from his wife's breast milk.

It all began when Angerer noticed his wife producing breast milk faster than daughter Arabella Caroline could handle. "To throw it out would be like wasting gold," he wrote. So he used the surplus to make what he called My Spouse's Mommy Milk Cheese, even posting the recipe on his blog. "The phone was ringing off the hook," Angerer told the New York Post, who first broke the story. "So I prepared a little canape of breast milk cheese with figs and Hungarian pepper."

After some calls from the health department, the chef, who claims he served the cheese only to friends and family, won't be putting it on the menu. Still, he describes it as "like cow's-milk cheese, kind of sweet." Even though I'm sure he's right, I'm completely rankled by the idea. Would you try breast milk cheese?

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While the images of the death and destruction in Haiti have spurred an outpouring of support for the devastated nation, they are also re-igniting the never-ending debate about the best way to feed a baby. Since the catastrophic earthquake hit, many relief agencies have sent out email, Facebook and Twitter requests for baby formula, bottles and nipples to help nourish the littlest ones affected by the disaster. With so many wee ones orphaned in the wake of the tragedy, the call for food seemed natural.

But breastfeeding advocates and disaster response experts are sending a different message – send money, not food. As new mamas can attest, formula (in particular powder formula) feeding requires clean water for both food preparation and bottle cleaning. Given the current state of the Haitian water supply, and the lack of access to electricity to boil the water that does exist, formula feeding may be more harmful to Haitian babies than expected, risking contamination, infection, diarrhea, dehydration, malnutrition and death.

Though US milk banks are collecting pumped breast milk for eventual distribution in Haiti, experts agree that sending money rather than milk, will allow relief agencies to provide mothers and wet nurses with the food and water they need to continue nursing babies, rather than having to provide them with unsafe bottles.

Have you donated to the Haiti relief efforts? If so, how?

Doctors always tell you that breast milk is best, but is someone else's breast milk just as good? My pal recently told me that she just gave a friend, who has a younger baby, all her frozen breast milk, since it was going to go bad before her son could consume it all. Known as liquid gold in some circles, breast milk is a valuable commodity to a nursing mama and could be even more valuable to a mother who is lacking in that department. Salma Hayek nursed a newborn that was not her own, and many mommies donate their frozen breast milk to a milk bank. In both cases, the milk benefits babies in need even if it is unusual.

What if your child was the one in need? Would you feed your babe someone else's breast milk?