Subject:    Re: Berkeley goes for breast-feeding record -Berkeley
> nurse-in
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Berkeley goes for breast-feeding record
> Berkeley nurse-in
> Breast-feeding mothers hope to break world record
>
> Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer     Wednesday, July 31, 2002
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Got mother's milk? Berkeley wants you.
>
> It doesn't rank with the Tour de France or World Cup just yet, but breast-
>
> feeding en masse is rapidly gaining status as a new international
> competition.
>
> The world champions of mass lactation are Australians, who set a Guinness
> World Record with 536 moms nursing simultaneously in a movie theater in
> New
> South Wales last Aug. 1. But the city of Berkeley hopes to bring the crown
> to
> America this Saturday at the Berkeley Community Theatre.
>
> In support of World Breastfeeding Week (which begins Thursday), the city
> is
> recruiting mothers from hundreds of miles around to try to beat the
> Guinness
> record for "Most Women Breastfeeding Simultaneously."
>
> Berkeley's chances are "very good," said Ellen Sirbu, co-chair of the
> Berkeley effort and director of the city's Women, Infants and Children WIC
>
> nutrition program.
>
> By late Tuesday, 675 women had preregistered -- from as far away as
> Washington state and San Diego -- and more are expected, she said. Today
> is
> the last day for advance registration, but participants may register at
> noon
> Saturday at the event.
> But Berkeley is not a shoo-in, even if it beats the current record. At
> least
> two other attempts are being held in the coming days -- one in Orange
> County
> and one by a different Australian group in Adelaide.
>
> All the contenders say it's not about competition but about supporting
> breast-feeding, particularly in light of recent studies confirming the
> many
> health benefits for mother and child. It's also about rescuing the female
> breast from sexual fetishism and prudery and about opposing corporate
> marketing of baby formula to unwitting mothers.
>
> All that's certainly true, but the lure of getting into Guinness, the
> world's
> best-selling copyright book, cannot be denied.
>
> Heather Heineke of Berkeley said she's bringing her month-old baby to
> Saturday's nurse-a-thon "because it's a great way to get the word out
> about
> breast-feeding and how important it is," and then added:
>
> "We thought, 'Hey a world-record holder at just 1 month!' As a parent you
> have high expectations for the children."
>
> For Sirbu, who opened a new city office devoted to breast-feeding in
> March,
> it's also a matter of civic pride in the face of the record being held by
> a
> country whose population density is a dozen times smaller than the United
> States'.
>
> "Australia is almost the same size geographically, with a population of
> only
> about 18 million," she said. "If we can't break the record in Berkeley,
> we're
> pretty bad."
>
> But people in Australia, including the woman who first came up with the
> idea
> for a simultaneous breast-feeding record and got it established in 1999,
> say
> there's a good reason for their nation's nursing renown.
>
> "Our levels of breast-feeding are so much higher," said Brenda Crilley, an
>
> Adelaide lactation consultant. "We've cottoned on that breast-feeding is a
>
> really good thing for mothers and babies."
>
> She said the breast-feeding rate for mothers just out of the hospital in
> Australia is about 95 percent, compared with about 64 percent in the
> United
> States.
>
> Australia's public support for breast-feeding -- including stickers in
> merchants' windows saying, "Breastfeeding Welcome Here" -- inspired Sirbu
> to
> suggest Berkeley's effort.
> Crilley, also a midwife at Flinders Medical Centre, helped set the first
> record of 388 mothers breast-feeding at once in Adelaide on Aug. 5, 1999.
> It
> was sponsored by the South Australian College of Lactation Consultants,
> with
> support from the Australian Breastfeeding Association.
>
> Now Crilley's group will try to recapture the crown with the "South
> Australian Breastfeeding Challenge" in Adelaide Thursday. There's no prior
>
> registration, so the count won't be known before then, she said.
>
> There have been several other attempts in the past, often under the banner
> of
> "Breastfest" in Australia. No one beat the record in 2000, even though
> Crilley's group tried again, as did a group from Montreal, she said.
>
> Last year saw a bumper crop of groups vying for the record -- six from
> Australia, one from Vancouver and one from Shasta County, the first from
> the
> United States.
> "We only had about 176," said lactation consultant Susan Ann Spencer,
> organizer of the Shasta attempt. "We're not as big a community, I guess."
> The
> county's population is 163,000.
>
> The winner last year, and current record holder, is the Central Coast Area
>
> Health Service of Gosford, not far from Sydney. They're not making an
> attempt
> this year.
> In an e-mail from Down Under, Australian Breastfeeding Association
> Director
> Lee King welcomed the American challengers: "It is great to see interest
> from
> the USA in breast-feeding (Even though it is in the way of attempting to
> break our world record!)"
> She noted, however, that the group from South Australia that set the first
>
> record in 1999 is "quite keen to regain the title" this year.
>
> The other U.S. contender will muster mothers next Wednesday in Orange
> County.
> "We do expect a lot of people," said Margie Deutsch Lash, past president
> of
> the Orange County Breastfeeding Coalition, which got the idea after
> hearing
> of Berkeley's effort.
> She said only about 20 mothers had submitted written registrations by
> Tuesday, but the group has received many "verbal registrations" and
> expects
> many mothers to register the day of the event, to be held at 10 a.m. in
> Fairview Park in Costa Mesa.
>
> Sponsors of the Berkeley attempt remain optimistic in face of the
> competition.
> "I think our chances are fabulous," said Kelly Moore, co-chair of the
> Berkeley effort and WIC director at the Native American Health Center in
> Oakland.
>
> Organizers have already printed T-shirts saying "World Record" for the
> participants. The breast-feeding count will be at 2 p.m. in the theater
> across the street, and will be closed except to the mothers, organizers
> and
> the media.
>
> The mothers will sit in every other row with empty rows between them so
> that
> volunteer checkers can count the successful suckling. In compliance with
> Guinness rules, two independent verifiers -- Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean
> and
> another to be named -- will attest to the event.
>
> The London-based Guinness organization, which was contacted by 60,000
> would-
> be record-breakers in the past 12 months alone, can't furnish
> representatives
> to all attempts in the world.
>
> One mother who plans to be at the Berkeley event Saturday, Karen Symons of
>
> Santa Clara, is from Australia and moved to the United States only two
> years
> ago. Asked if she feels torn about helping the competition against a
> record
> from her homeland, she replied:
>
> "Absolutely not. Whether it's American or Australian, the benefits are for
>
> mothers and babies."
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> The Berkeley activities begin at noon at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic
> Center
> Park, located at Allston Way and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. More
> information
> is available at the state WIC Web site, www.wickworks.ca.gov. Advance
> registration, ending today, can be made by calling Sirbu at (510) 981-5131
> or
> e-mailing her at [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>

Karin Hofmann-Biswas  IBCLC, HHP, CCN, CCH, CPD
International Board Certified Lactation Consultant,
Holistic Health Practitioner, Certified Clinical Nutritionist,
Certified Clinical Herbologist, Doula
Nutrition and Natural Health, Working with your Dr and Rx!
http://www.drnature911.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Natural-Parenting101        Central Florida
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NaturalParenting101          International
Changing The World One Baby At A Time!

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