> Subject: Salon magazine
> Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 10:37:14 EDT
> From: "Elisheva S. Urbas" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> I didn't think this piece was hostile to breastfeeding in fact.
Even with teasers such as "Nursing Death: Can breast-feeding be deadly?"
and :
>
> "When her baby was hungry, Tatiana Cheeks did what
> comes naturally -- she breast-fed her. When her baby died of
> malnourishment at 6 weeks, Cheekswas arrested and charged with
> criminally negligent homicide. Who really is to blame? The health-care
> system that turned her down when she sought help or the age-old
> practice of breast-feeding our babies? By Dawn MacKeen."
BTW, breastfeeding is not an "age-old practice". Is pregnancy an
"age-old practice"?
This story
> has been covered in all the newspapers, on TV, and on radio as "mom bf/s baby
> to death," but salon's approach was to interview Ruth Lawrence!
And to ask her, over and over, in every way they could think of, whether
she didn't agree that breast-feeding was the *cause* of the baby's
death.
> Salon does also publish humor about bf sometimes in that column; and some of
> us who know how important bf is are very sensitive to jokes about it, fearing
> that any joke will be at bf's expense. But I think that nothing is normalized
> in society until the people who do it every day can joke about it, and that's
> who's writing those pieces at salon -- mothers who bf every day.
Wrong. I happen to know that several of the editors at MTW don't even
have children. (that includes at least one of the women who interviewed
Dr. Lawrence).
I am not sensitive to joking about breastfeeding in a friendly way on
occasion. I am sensitive to MAKING A JOKE OUT OF BREASTFEEDING, which is
not a lifestyle issue but a critical infant-maternal health and human
rights issue. To me, there is a world of difference. And when you run a
widely read parenting magazine for over a year with piece after piece
making fun of breastfeeding or questioning whether it kills, well, the
overall POV becomes quite clear to me.
>
>
> Elisheva
> (who is embarrassed to have found herself ranting a bit -- I guess overlaps
> between bf and the literary world where I spend my non-bf life are *my* hot
> buttons!)
Elisheva, I make my full time living as a writer, so I feel like I am
pretty good at spotting editorial bias. Perhaps it is unintentional on
Salon's part, but a trend in their coverage of this important mothering
issue has emerged and they need to be made aware of it.
Katie Allison Granju
Knoxville, TN
>
> Elisheva S. Urbas
> book editor & bf lay counselor, NYC
> [log in to unmask]
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject: Galctocele?
> Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 10:45:00 -0400
> From: michelle i scott <[log in to unmask]>
>
> Help. I have a mom who has a 4 month old baby. Baby is doing well,
> beautiful wt gain, contented baby. This is #4 baby of experienced bf
> mother.
> The mother, on the other hand, had breast pain and general "not well"
> feeling about a month ago. She had had mastitis with a previous child, and
> feared she was getting it again. MD prescribed antibiotic for 10d. She
> felt somewhat better for a few days, then still had pain - one breast only
> - so MD prescribed 10 more days of antibiotic (a dif. one). Not better
> after 17 days of antibiotic, and a pea sized whitish lump appeared on the
> nipple. VERY painful. MD not able to help and referred her to
> oncologist(breast specialist) who made an appointment for her in 3 weeks!!!
> Between me and the LCs at the local hospital calling they moved her appt
> so they could see her in 5 d, and operated on the "cyst" the following
> week. Baby has continued to bf thru all of this. In fact, mom gets
> relief from the pressure from having the baby nurse. Works better than her
> elec. br.pump(M--)
> After the surgery, there is now a small hole where the cyst was removed,
> and now, 1 wk later, she is again having "weird" unwell feelings and the
> breast is again painful. The surgeon did do ultrasounds before and after
> the surgery to determine if he had gotten all cyst. She said he squeezed
> the area and milk squirted out all over, not the usual way of coming out in
> small streams. Before the surgery she said she could feel where the milk
> had congealed in the duct, and she felf it was this clogging that caused
> her such pain.
> She doesn't have a lot of confidence in the surgeon, or in the primary
> care phys. but feels she must have more help to solve this once and for
> all.
> My question is: Could the surgery have severed the milk ducts going into
> the nipple so that there is insufficient drainage now? Or is a new
> galactocele forming? Or was there something else? None of my texts
> explain very much about galactocele.
> Meanwhile mom continues to nurse baby, will try to make sure the painful
> side is emptied as much as possible. She has shooting pains, which is
> somewhat relieved by nursing. Could she now have a yeast infection?
> She was not given antibiotics after the surgery, and is no meds now.
> Look forward to hearing in from you. Michelle Scott, RD,IBCLC
> [log in to unmask]
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject: Beer and Prolactin
> Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 12:31:07 -0500
> From: Julie Mennella <[log in to unmask]>
>
> Some additional information to share:
>
> The articles that were cited in the recent post (JAMA 1987: DeRosa,
> 1981; Carlson, 1985; etc) are often used to support the foklore that
> beer is a galactagogue. But if you look at these articles, you will
> find that the subjects were men and non-lactating women!!
>
> To clarify another point, the Ruth Little NEJM study showed that
> infants of women you drink one drink of alcohol a day or more during
> lactation were at risk for later motor impairment at one year
> (Source: New England Journal of Medicine 321: 425-30; 1989).
>
> Sincerely,
> Julie Mennella
>
> ---
> Julie Mennella Ph.D.
> [log in to unmask]
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject: IBCLC exam and Durable medical equipment
> Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 10:30:59 -0600
> From: Beth M McHugh <[log in to unmask]>
>
> I just took the exam in 1997 and a few improvements in the slide portion
> have taken place since some of the recent post-ers had completed the
> test. One big improvement is that the pictures are now in a booklet
> format as part of the exam, so there is no 'timed' portion on each slide.
> This allows the student to go back and review pictures they are unsure
> about several times during that portion of the exam. I was fortunate that
> our state WIC office had some materials that they shared with me that
> included about 20 photos. They helped reassure me that I would probably
> do ok on this portion of the exam as they were pretty obvious in their
> depiction of the problem.
>
> On the issue of the Durable medical equipment, when our hospital was
> looking into a pump rental station, the information we received from the
> Idaho Department of Health and Welfare states that: "DURABLE MEDICAL
> EQUIPMENT (DME) is equipment other that prosthetics or orthotics which
> can withstand repeated use by one or more individual, is primarily and
> customarily used to serve a medical purpose, is generally not useful to a
> person in the absence of an illness or injury, is appropriate for use in
> the home, and is reasonable and necessary for the treatment of an illness
> or injury for a MA recipient." (11-1-86)
>
> We concluded that for the average mom, renting a pump for return to work,
> temporary situations, preterm delivery, etc. that a physician order was
> not necessary for them to obtain/rent a pump, and would be *useful to the
> mom in the absence of an illness or injury*, thus the pump did not fall
> under the DME category.
>
> Beth McHugh BSN, IBCLC
> [log in to unmask]
>
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