BLACK MOTHERS’ BREASTFEEDING ASSOCIATION RECEIVES GRANT TO HELP ERADICATE RACIAL BREASTFEEDING DISPARITIES

PRESS RELEASE 6/10/2013 For Immediate Release Contact: Kiddada Green 800-313-6141 Black Mothers’ Breastfeeding Association DETROIT – Black Mothers’ Breastfeeding Association (BMBFA) has received a $400,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The funds will be used to strengthen organizational capacity by building management systems, expanding existing programs and developing new programs, leading to sustainable growth to improve the quality of life for vulnerable, poverty stricken children, while causing social change for the greater good. The funding period began on May 1, 2013 and ends on June 30, 2016.BMBFA’s community approach to breastfeeding support has been deemed innovative due to its explicit focus on narrowing the disparity gap that exists in breastfeeding rates.  In Michigan, only 50.9 percent of black children ever receive breast milk as compared to 68.5 percent of white children.  Strengthening BMBFA’s infrastructure will lead to long-term increases in breastfeeding rates and work to create a monumental social impact that restores the emotional, psychological and physical health of the Detroit community.”What a wonderful opportunity to service a very deserving community with culturally appropriate support for breastfeeding, leading to lifelong health and wellness,” says Kiddada Green, founding director of BMBFA.  Since 2007, BMBFA has strived to increase the number of black mothers who breastfeed and the amount of time spent doing so. BMBFA is the only organization of its kind in the state of Michigan. So what’s the big deal? Why is breast milk so important to African Americans? African Americans have the lowest breastfeeding rates in the U.S. Yet, they are hit hardest by health problems that breastfeeding protects against: diabetes, obesity, heart disease, asthma and allergies – just to name a few. Building the capacity of BMBFA will help to increase breastfeeding initiation and duration rates of African Americans. BMBFA’s expanding and new programs include: 1) Developing a replication model for Black Mothers’ Breastfeeding Club, a mother-to-mother support group that facilitates peer support, 2) Partnering with St. John Hospital to increase the number of black lactation consultants in Michigan through the Mother Nurture Lactation College, 3) Creating web-based seminars for professionals with an interest in maternal-child-health, focused on culturally competent breastfeeding support for mothers and babies. Overall this project will enhance BMBFA’s services to eliminate breastfeeding disparities for African American families in Detroit by strengthening organizational capacity. # # #   Black Mothers’ Breastfeeding Association (BMBFA) is a non-profit organization founded in 2007.  BMBFA’s mission is to increase awareness of the benefits of breastfeeding throughout the African American community. BMBFA will improve the quality of life and enhance self reliance by educating, providing valuable resources, offering on-going support, and joining forces with other organizations that share a similar interest. For more information, visit www.BMBFA.org.The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), founded in 1930 as an independent, private foundation by breakfast cereal pioneer, Will Keith Kellogg, is among the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. Guided by the belief that all children should have an equal opportunity to thrive, WKKF works with communities to create conditions for vulnerable children so they can realize their full potential in school, work and life.The Kellogg Foundation is based in Battle Creek, Mich., and works throughout the United States and internationally, as well as with sovereign tribes. Special emphasis is paid to priority places where there are high concentrations of poverty and where children face significant barriers to success. WKKF priority places in the U.S. are in Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans; and internationally, are in Mexico and Haiti. For more information, visit www.wkkf.org.

Can Genetic Analysis of Breast Milk Help Identify Ways to Improve a Newborn’s Diet?

PRESS RELEASE FROM BREASTFEEDING MEDICINE Contact: Vicki Cohn Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers (914) 740-2100, ext. 2156 vcohn@liebertpub.com ShareThis

Can Genetic Analysis of Breast Milk Help Identify Ways to Improve a Newborn’s Diet? New Rochelle, NY, June 4, 2013—The composition of breast milk varies from mother to mother, and genetic factors may affect the levels of protective components in breast milk that could influence a newborn’s outcomes. The potential to perform genomic studies on breast milk samples is explored in a Review article in Breastfeeding Medicine, the Official Journal of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Breastfeeding Medicine website. Kelley Baumgartel and Yvette Conley, University of Pittsburgh, PA, reviewed the scientific literature to determine whether breast milk is an appropriate source for genetic material—DNA and RNA—to perform gene expression and epigenetic studies. In the article “The Utility of Breast Milk for Genetic or Genomic Studies: A Systematic Review,” the authors describe the potential value of the genetic information obtained from breast milk, which can be collected easily and noninvasively. It could lead to a better understanding of the variability in breast milk and to strategies for optimizing the neonatal diet through fortification of donor breast milk, supplementation of the mother’s diet, or maternal lifestyle changes that would affect breast milk composition. “The great majority of mothers produces milk that matches the needs of her infant amazingly well,” says Associate Editor David S. Newburg, PhD, Professor, Department of Biology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA. “But for those few infants with exceptional needs, such as premature infants, or for mothers with uncommon mutations whose milk lacks the full complement of beneficial components, genetic and genomic analysis would both identify the mismatch and provide the information to produce a personalized complementary fortifier or supplement.” About the Journal Breastfeeding Medicine, the Official Journal of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, is an authoritative, peer-reviewed journal published bimonthly in print and online. In 2014 the Journal will be publishing 10 issues per year. The Journal publishes original scientific papers, reviews, and case studies on a broad spectrum of topics in lactation medicine. It presents evidence-based research advances and explores the immediate and long-term outcomes of breastfeeding, including the epidemiologic, physiologic, and psychological benefits of breastfeeding. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Breastfeeding Medicine website. About the Publisher Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Journal of Women’s Health, Childhood Obesity, and Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, and Pulmonology. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN) was the first in its field and is today the industry’s most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm’s 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.

Breast-Feeding Trends Infograph

Source:LiveScience

Early, limited data for early, limited formula use

A small study published in Pediatrics suggests that supplementing newborns with small quantities of formula may improve long-term breastfeeding rates. The results challenge both dogma and data linking supplementation with early weaning, call into question the Joint Commission’s exclusive breastfeeding quality metric, and will no doubt inspire intimations of a formula-industry conspiracy. Before we use this study to transform clinical practice, I think it’s worth taking a careful look at what the authors actually found.

First, I think it’s very important to be clear about what the authors meant by “early limited formula.” The authors used 2 teaspoons of hypo-allergenic formula, given via a syringe, as a bridge for mothers whose infants had lost > 5% of their birthweight and mom’s milk had not yet come in. At UNC, we use donor milk in a similar way, offering supplemental breast milk via a syringe as a bridge until mom’s milk production increases.

Re-visiting pacifiers and breastfeeding

A newly published study in Pediatrics  is receiving media attention due to its finding that “restricting pacifier distribution during the newborn hospitalization without also restricting access to formula was associated with decreased exclusive breastfeeding, increased supplemental formula feeding, and increased exclusive formula feeding.”

The study took place in a US hospital’s mother-baby-unit (MBU) before and after implementation of a new institutional policy restricting routine pacifier distribution as part of a breastfeeding support initiative.  (The four other breastfeeding support measures adopted by the MBU included breastfeeding in the first hour after birth, feeding only breast milk in the hospital, keeping infant in same room with mother in the hospital, and giving mother a telephone number to call for help with breastfeeding after discharge.)  Of note, pacifiers were stored in a locked supply management system as part of the new policy, but formula access was not limited in the same way.

The researchers retrospectively examined exclusive breastfeeding rates (as compared to breastfeeding plus supplemental formula, and exclusive formula feeding) before and after the change.   They saw a significant decrease in exclusive breastfeeding (from 79% to 68%) paralleled by significant increases in both formula-supplemented breastfeeding (18% to 28%) and exclusive formula feeding (1.8% to 3.4%).

While it is tempting to conclude “thus pacifier use is necessary in supporting exclusive breastfeeding”, it’s also important to note that the study in question states that “no specific script was instituted to verbally instruct parents on infant soothing techniques” either before or after restricting pacifier use.  Thus it is equally tempting  to conclude that desperate parents will resort to culturally familiar ways to soothe crying newborns — and in US culture, those include bottles and pacifiers.

It would be interesting to see a similar study conducted in a setting that emphasizes supporting parents in learning alternative ways to comfort their babies, such as skin-to-skin care and cue-based breastfeeding.  It might also be interesting to see weight loss at discharge,  and/or jaundice requiring phototherapy, as an outcome measure.

Kimberly Lee is a neonatologist and member of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine. She has previously written about pacifiers and breastfeeding in her blog post, “A sucker born every minute:” Pacifiers and breastfeeding.

Posts on this blog reflect the opinions of individual ABM members, not the organization as a whole.

The Breastfeeding and Obesity Controversy

Fact or fiction: Is breastfeeding actually linked with a lower risk of childhood obesity? The common thinking for the past several years has been “yes,” based on comprehensive analyses from the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the World Health Organization. However, two recent articles have disputed these conclusions. Considerable media attention has surrounded new data from the Promotion of Breastfeeding Intervention Trial (PROBIT), published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on March 13, and in a January 31 article in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on obesity myths by Casazza et al. We discuss both articles’ conclusions, as the public tries to make sense of all the conflicting information.

Establishing the Fourth Trimester

Lisa Selvin’s provocative article, “Is the Medical Community Failing Breastfeeding Moms?” has elicited a wide range of reactions from the breastfeeding community. Some have argued that the piece, which focuses on unmet needs of mothers who encounter physiologic problems with breastfeeding, “sensationalizes” breastfeeding, making it sound so treacherous and difficult that mothers should avoid it altogether.

I would argue that there’s a very fine line between “sensationalizing” and “truth in advertising.” Reproductive biology is imperfect — some couples can’t conceive, and some pregnancies end in miscarriage or stillbirth. The silence around these losses and the isolation that women have historically experienced has probably worsened the suffering for many women. On the other hand, emphasizing these risks and creating a culture of fear harms the majority of mothers who will have successful pregnancies and births.

Questioning the Feasibility of a Paid Maternity Leave Policy During a Time of Ecconomic Crisis

Reviewing the proceedings of the Fourth Annual Summit on Breastfeeding¹ was an informative and inspiring experience for me. Still, I must confess to a measure of disappointment regarding the absence of any meaningful discussion about paid maternity leave as a strategy to improve upon breastfeeding rates in the United States. This is curious, considering that paid maternity leave was the second most common topic for public comment in the preparation of The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding². I suspect that the reason for this omission from the Summit agenda was an unspoken presumption that a national paid maternity leave policy is not going to happen, and so it makes no sense to talk about it. If true, I would like to challenge this presumption.

ABM Responds to The New York Times’ “The Milk Wars”

To the Editor:

RE: “The Milk Wars”, The New York Times, July 14, 2012

In her column “The Milk Wars,” Alissa Quart asserts that exclusive breastfeeding is “a kind of harm-reduction or abatement… part of a collective dream of reducing all danger to nil.” She goes on to suggest that breastfeeding is “less important than advocates claim.”

In fact, breastfeeding is the physiologic way to feed a human infant. When this physiology is disrupted, health risks increase for mother and child. A systematic review of the evidenced based literature has concluded that infants who are formula-fed face increased risks of ear infections, pneumonia, gastrointestinal infections, allergies , malignancies, obesity and sudden infant death syndrome. Mothers who do not breastfeed are more likely to develop breast cancer, ovarian cancer, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

Ms. Quart correctly states that there are multiple societal barriers to breastfeeding, but the solution is not to downplay the importance of normal human physiology. Instead, we must implement public health strategies that address these barriers and lead to support for all mothers and infants. As Dr. Regina Benjamin stated in the Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding, “the time has come to set forth the important roles and responsibilities of clinicians, employers, communities, researchers, and government leaders and to urge us all to take on a commitment to enable mothers to meet their personal goals for breastfeeding.” The Call to Action is the cornerstone of breastfeeding policy in the United States, and it specifically focuses on removing societal barriers so that mothers can achieve their own breastfeeding goals, not on “mandating” nursing.

In her column, Ms. Quart did not mention the Surgeon General’s Call to Action and instead cited results and opinions from an anecdotal web search to characterize “today’s lactation rhetoric.” Mothers – and readers of the New York Times – deserve better quality research and discussion about health policy. The issues are not one of maternal guilt or life style but rather a basic concern for the well being of mothers and their infants.

Arthur I. Eidelman, MD, President,
Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine

This letter was submitted to the editor of The New York Times on July 16, 2012

Have you registered for the 17th Annual International Meeting in Chicago? 
See you in the “Windy City” on  October 11-14, 2012!

Stop the Madness

For the second time in 8 days, the New York Times is running an opinion piece criticizing “polarizing messages” about breastfeeding and questioning the evidence linking breastfeeding with differences in health outcomes for mother and child.

Neither writer interviewed an epidemiologist or a scientist who has studied associations between breastfeeding and health outcomes, and neither writer acknowledged evidence-based reviews of the literature by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality or the World Health Organization. Instead, they quote a retired physician who authors a controversial blog and journalist who wrote a piece on breastfeeding in 2009, and they conclude that breastfeeding isn’t that important after all.

Both Alissa Quart and Jane Brody go on to suggest that it’s unrealistic to recommend 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding, because too many women encounter insurmountable barriers that make these recommendations impossible to achieve.

And yet, for the second time in 8 days, a New York Times writer has chosen to ignore the major public health strategies currently in place to address these barriers: