breastfeeding

Here's a post from our partners at BabyCenter! Every week, we bring you the best parenting and lifestyle stories from the experts at BabyCenter, including this post from Jessica Kim about pumping at work.

Remember the song, “Pump…pump it up…yo pumpin’!” It has become my theme song as I walk off to pump throughout the work day. As the founder of a startup, BabbaCo, I brought baby Brandon to work with me and breastfed him in front of anyone and everyone. I used my hooter hider cover, of course, but would breastfeed him even while recruiting new hires! (My co-founder recalls that I was all business from neck up, but in the midst of talking about product lines, you heard baby Brandon literally slurping underneath a cover. Hilarious.)

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Well, now that Brandon no longer comes to the office, I’m now pumping several times a day. It has become a very public "to do" amongst my 14-person team. "Jessica, you need to pump, right?" "Let’s meet while you pump! I used to whisk away and privately pump, but I soon got comfortable with pumping in front of people.

Here is a pic of me in the bathroom stalls meeting with Stef, my product director, as I pumped. At first, I felt really odd about her seeing my milk for some reason. I obviously got past that quickly.

However, it’s different. I can breastfeed in front of male co-workers, but I can’t pump in front of them. I just feel a bit guarded and awkward. Everyone discusses breastfeeding in public, but what about pumping? Is it different to pump in public vs. breastfeed in public? In both situations, I’m covered, but I have found that people respond differently when it’s a machine sucking my milk out versus. a baby.

Would love to hear your thoughts…before I scare off my 26-year-old bachelor teammate. Thanks!

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File this one under "wow": Texan mom Alicia Richman has broken the previously established Guinness World Record for donated breast milk. She surpassed the 7,000 ounce record by donating 11,115 ounces of breast milk to Mother's Milk Bank of North Texas within nine months!

One ounce of milk provides three feedings for each premature baby in a neonatal unit, so Richman's donations has done an amazing amount of good.

Watch the video below to hear how Richman managed this feat while also working and nursing her own baby, Drake.

Dallas News | myFOXdfw.com 

Read the whole story (myfoxfw.com)>>

Image Source: Fox 4 News

Here's a post from our partners at BabyCenter! Every week, we bring you the best parenting and lifestyle stories from the experts at BabyCenter, including this post from Sabrina Garibian about breastfeeding while pregnant.

Some of you didn't think it was possible, right? Well it is.

Breastfeeding while pregnant is not something I ever thought I would do. Actually, I didn't even know one could breastfeed while pregnant. When we decided to try for another baby, I knew it would be important to me to continue to breastfeed as long as Raffi wanted and it made sense. I didn't consider two big factors: pain and supply.

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The night before I found out we were expecting I had a dream that I was pregnant — just like last time. I woke up, took a test and it had the slightest second line. I was sure I was imagining it just as I was sure I was imagining the pain I experienced when Raffi nursed that day. Yet the next day the second line was darker and the nursing pain was still there. I was pregnant! I am pregnant!

I was worried about others judging me but I continued nursing anyway.

My OB told me to stop immediately, but I felt comfortable that it was safe for me. I didn't want to rush the weaning process at all.

Raffi started nursing up to eight times a day and for long periods at a time. My chest hurt tremendously, and even with the increased nursing sessions my supply didn't keep up. Weaning continued naturally. Even while I was nauseous and exhausted, nursing wasn't difficult while pregnant aside from those two issues. I enjoyed the snuggling and I feared I would miss it when Raffi stopped. It was important to me to wean naturally.

Today I can share that last week was my last nursing session with Raffi. It was bittersweet, as it is for many who wean. I was in no rush to stop breastfeeding, and our weaning process took over two months. Now it's done and the emotions are flooding while the milk is not.

I am thankful I was able to nurse for over a year and throughout my entire first trimester. I'm also thankful that we are done and can bond in other special ways now. Over the last week Raffi has started toddling over and spontaneously giving me giant, cuddly hugs. And I get to eat as much peanut butter as I'd like.

What do you think about breastfeeding during pregnancy?

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Here's a post from our partners at BabyCenter! Every week, we bring you the best parenting and lifestyle stories from the experts at BabyCenter, including this post from Evonne Lack about still nursing her son at 18-months.

William, this baby who started tapping on my heart about seven years before he was conceived, is almost 18 months old. He's still nursing — once before bedtime, again in the middle of the night (most nights), and yet a third time upon waking in the morning.

Occasionally — maybe once or twice a week — he'll "ask" to nurse in the afternoon by tugging on my shirt. Usually, I give in.

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"Once they can ask for it, it's time to stop," natter the naysayers. Every time I've heard a naysayer naysay this, she (sorry, but it's always a she) accompanies it with a little laugh, as if it's so ridiculous to still be nursing your baby when he's no longer really a baby, so ridiculously off the wall that she can't even naysay about it without that embarrassed giggle.

Ask a naysayer why someone would still be nursing after 18 months, and she'd probably say it was due to laziness, or a weird dysfunctional attachment to the child, or a lack of willingness for the child to grow up.

Those naysayers get on my nerves.

But you know who else gets on my nerves? "Proud Mama's" who are so damn proud of breastfeeding (they always say "breastfeeding" instead of "nursing") that they judge mothers who don't breastfeed, and make inane statements about how people who don't breastfeed "just aren't comfortable with their bodies," and sign their computer signatures like this: "(.)(.) Proud Breastfeeding Mama! (.)(.)"

Ask a Proud Mama why someone would wean before 18 months, and she'd probably say it was due to laziness, or a weird lack of attachment to the child, or a desire to make the child grow up too fast.

Jeez. We eat each other alive sometimes, don't we?

Fortunately, these are the extremes. I think most of us are in the "to each her own" camp; it's just that the naysayers and Proud Mama's have louder voices.

Anyway. William started tapping at my heart about seven years before he was conceived, and now he taps at my breast, tap tap tap, and I give in. I suppose laziness is part of it, actually, as well as — yep — an unwillingness to let him grow up. And hell, I may as well admit it, there's a little pride in there too, but not obnoxiously so.

And partly (partly, I say!) I nurse him because I'm still trying to get myself to believe that I actually had a third baby.

I mean, I never got used to it, you know? The fact that I had a third baby, this tapping son, was always a bit infused with disbelief, like a dream, from the moment he was born. And now he's not even a baby anymore! He's a toddler, and I can't begin to believe that, because I didn't accomplish believing the baby thing yet!

It's kind of like radios. I never bothered to learn how they worked — soundwaves? what? — and now there's way too much technology in the world for me to even begin to understand any of it. It's too late, I'm too behind.

Does this make any sense at all? Probably not.

3rd grade and 1st grade start on Monday, and my baby is a toddler, and everything just keeps spinning.

At least with the nursing, I'm spinning right there with it.

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Source: Flickr User Benjamin Magaña

Miami Marlins left fielder Logan Morrison provoked anger last week when he complained to his 100,000+ Twitter followers about a mom who was breastfeeding her baby at Nordstrom's. He posted his phone camera picture of the woman along with the words, "Hey @Nordstrom nothing makes me want to spend $$ like seeing women breastfeeding in your store...”

In the Twitter dust-up that followed, not only did Nordstrom's let Morrison know that they welcome breastfeeding moms, but NBC Sports writer Craig Calcaterra criticized him for "commenting ignorantly."

To find out how Morrison responded, read the whole story at The Huffington Post.

Image Source: Getty Images via Huffington Post

Here's a post from our partners at BabyCenter! Every week, we bring you the best parenting and lifestyle stories from the experts at BabyCenter, including this post from Betsy Shaw about the NYC mayor's plan to promote breastfeeding.

As part of his push toward improved public health, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg has shifted his focus from soft drinks to infant formula.

According to The New York Post, as of September, New York City hospitals taking part in a restrictive pro-breastfeeding program initiated by Mayor Bloomberg will be required to monitor every bit of formula they stock and use.

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Not only must the formula be accounted for, but also, a medical reason must be indicated and documented for each and every bottle of formula a baby receives.

With each bottle a mother requests and receives, she'll also get a talking-to. Staffers will explain why she should offer the breast instead.

"It's the patient's choice," said Allison Walsh of Beth Israel Medical Center. "But it's our job to educate them on the best option."

The program, called Latch-On NYC, is "a citywide initiative to support mothers who choose to breastfeed, and limit practices that interfere with that choice."

Participating hospitals — 27 of the city's largest 40 — must also stop distributing formula samples and formula-branded swag, such as gift bags and mugs.

Breastfeeding activists have always believed one of the biggest obstacles to breastfeeding comes in the form of easy access formula at the most crucial point: in the hospital immediately following birth. According to CBS News' Health Pop, the National Alliance For Breastfeeding Advocacy is behind this program:

The Alliance's executive director says keeping baby formula under lock and key, like medicines are kept, helps prevent hospital staffers from reaching for a bottle first, instead of encouraging new mothers to nurse their babies.

Apparently some hospitals already have similar formula policies in place. According to quote from a nurse at NYU's Langone Medical Center, breastfeeding has seen a substantial increase — from 39 percent to 68 percent — since starting this program.

From what I understand, this initiative is not meant to deny formula to new mothers who insist on it, but to prevent those who want to breastfeed from being sabotaged.

That said, sounds like this program might have the potential make moms who want to formula-feed feel bullied. But it could also make moms who want to commit to breastfeeding feel more supported.

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Source: Flickr user Raphael Goetter