I am back from the Extreme Sports Camp in Penn. It was fun even for us old
folks who were working. I was wondering there  how many of the Extreme Sports
guys (bkers, boarders and bladers) were breastfed as infants. You know, some
of them have never had broken bones ( lost their speens, tore rotator cuffs,
etc but no breaks) so I suspect they were BF ( Strong bones from Bfing).
Wouldn't that make a great research study? Anyone making a PSA and want a BMX
biker spokesman?? My DH says I can never drop it ( bfing). I have been out of
town for most of May and the first of June-have driven 9000 miles since the
last of April.
I did the last in the series of four Breastfeeding Inservices yesterday at
the hospital. I think it went well-had 39 attend.  The topic was Physical and
Emotional barriers to Breastfeeding-Real or Perceived. The best compliment is
that the staff wanted to know the topics of the next series. I asked for
suggestions. We are currently developing treatment/care plans so eveyone will
be doing the same thing. The patients won't be hearing differnt things from
different staff. For example different staff members do different things for
sore nipples-from tea bags, to Lansinoh, to Hydrogels. And the babies with
the clefts were being fed with premie nipples, pigeon feeders and Habermans
depending on who the staff was and what they liked to use. We are just
starting on this. We plan on having those printed in triple forms so the mom
can have one to take home, one to go in the chart and one in our
breastfeeding notebook ( which I am developing so we can do followup phone
calls). Also, we are no longer rigging up devices. We will be using real
Starter SNSs if necessary, and using a pump instead of a cutup syringe as a
nipple puller (No more risk of  cutting off our fingers with a box cutter
while trying to cut a syringe ). And all devices has to be documented and
bfing assessed for weaning from the device before discharge. Hopefully this
will help the nurses attend a little more to the importance of  getting bfing
done right from the beginning so the devices will be the last resort instead
of reaching for a syringe or cup feeder the first time the baby is slow to
nurse.
 Also developing a Inhouse Breastfeeding Committee, and a World Breastfeeding
Week Committee. I am very excited about the support from the administration
for breastfeeding. Yesterday, 16 out of the 18 babies in the nursery were BF.
In the past month we have had 3 cleft lip/palate babies, 2 sets of triplets
and 2 sets of twins who all were BF and breastmilk fed.
I'm sure we will have some steps backwards as we all have some but it feels
good to be moving forward.

Barb Whitehead, BS, IBCLC
North Carolina

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