Another sign that we’ve reached the turning point in the breastfeeding movement is that there are several independent films in the works that have to do with breastfeeding and donor milk. I was a little disappointed that Michael Moore’s film “Sicko,” about the ”crazy and sometimes cruel” U.S. health care system, did not touch on the absurdity of systematically preventing moms from succeeding at breastfeeding despite the fact that it could save $13 billion and 900 lives per year, at the very least–and we think that is a conservative estimate. The good news is that several independent film makers think this absurdity should be the subject of a documentary that examines our cultural and institutional “booby traps” and how we ended up in this mess.
Left to Right: Katja Esson (Director, "Latching On"), Bettina Forbes (Co-Founder, Best for Babes), Debbie Zimmerman (Executive Director, Women Make Movies), Gina Ciagne (Director of Breastfeeding & Consumer Relations, Lansinoh Laboratories)
Katja Esson’s short film, ”Latching On,” does a great job covering much of this ground. I attended the premiere screening of her documentary at the Tribeca Film Center a couple of weeks ago and got a chance to chat with the director over a dinner sponsored by Lansinoh prior to the viewing. Like me, Katja Esson is a native of Germany, and was struck by the enormous cultural differences between her native country, where breastfeeding is accepted and embraced, and the U.S., where bottlefeeding is the norm. Even though she has no kids of her own, Katja spent seven years plumbing the depths of the anti-breastfeeding culture in the U.S.. She and I agree that the biggest booby trap is the lack of designated Baby-Friendly Hospitals in the U.S.–if new moms can’t even make it through two days of exclusive breastfeeding with their healthy, full-term babies without out being “booby-trapped”, than how can we expect them to get to the six months recommended by the AAP and every other medical & health organization? We really loved meeting some of the stars of the film, some of whom are already old friends of BfB like Heather Kelly, IBCLC and Felina of the Upper Breast Side. We were captivated by ”Glam-ma” (not Grandma) a glamorous and hip black woman who tells explains that she breastfed for economic decisions because there were no free handouts of formula through WIC. Her daughter-in-law is on the fence about breastfeeding and her story steals the show. The film, which is distributed by Women Make Movies, is already one of their top-selling films of the year and has tremendous potential for raising awareness and putting pressure on the barriers, not moms. Lansinoh’s ByMomsForMoms did a fantastic video interview with Katja Esson and Debbie Zimmerman (Executive Director of Women Make Movies) which explains how the film can “open eyes” and reach classrooms, libraries and even women’s prisons. We will be staying in touch with Katja, and Women Make Movies to see how Best for Babes can help market the movie to reach the largest audience possible (and hopefully capture attention of the media), and we’ll be following the film’s attendance at festivals on Facebook. Here’s the trailer:
Before the screening of “Latching On”, we also met Beth Poague, who is the process of making a documentary called “Supply & Demand: Uncovering Breastfeeding in America”. This film also shows great promise for educating and raising awareness of the barriers that keep moms from making informed feeding decisions and achieving their personal breastfeeding goals. She interviews our Board Member, Marsha Walker and we are excited to see her film develop. Thanks to Laura Keegan, RN, FNP and author of Breastfeeding with Comfort & Joy for introducing us to Beth.
Kevin West is making a full-length documentary called “Mother’s Milk: The Movie” which expands on a short film he created in 2009 that I found very moving and inspiring. The movie will highlight the work of the Human Milk Bank Association of North America and the desperate need for donated, screened, pasteurized human milk for babies whose mothers can not breastfeed, or who have been prevented from succeeding. We’re extremely excited about the potential of this film because we think it will have mass-market appeal and be able to drive the demand for human milk and give hope to mothers who want to give their babies the next best!
Have you ever asked yourself, “Who benefits from all of this research conducted on breast milk?” It seems that we are constantly hearing about a new study touting the benefits of breastfeeding and breast milk and as as breastfeeding advocates, we get excited and forward the links to everyone we know. But who sponsors the research and why? We challenged readers not to believe every study they see, and in an excellent piece called Full Disclosure on the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine’s blog, Dr. Alison Stuebe takes it a step further, examining how and why certain industries sponsor scientific studies.
Has anyone ever asked you, with eyebrow raised, if you were still nursing? Then you’ll love this piece by blogger Maria from Mommy Melee, who is still nursing and still is not ashamed!
Thought formula company marketing couldn’t get any lower? Then may I present you with Enfamil’s new chocolate formula for toddlers. The Atlantic did a great piece on the dangers of this product and is helping to raise awareness about the WHO Code. We’d love it if you could take a moment and post a comment thanking them. Although it’s important to call out the media when they get it wrong, we also have to remember to commend them when they get it right, so we can see more coverage of how dangerous this aggressive formula marketing really is.
Remember when actress Julie Bowen was on The View and they wouldn’t allow her to show a photo of her nursing her twins in the football hold? Well, she was a guest on the George Lopez show this week and he allowed her to show the photograph.
Beautiful!
If you’re a work out of the home mom like me, I know you can relate to some of the quotes from Vanessa Williams in this month’s Working Mother magazine. In the interview, Vanessa says, “There were definitely times I was torn and wished I could have stayed with my kids. There were times that it was very difficult. Just eight weeks after I’d had my second child, I had to go to England to promote my album for ten days. So I dragged my breast pump through airport security. I was so weepy to be leaving my newborn. Those were tough times.” As a mom who has done the same, I feel her pain, but kudos to Vanessa for making breastfeeding a priority!
Can breastfeeding protect babies from spiking fevers after immunizations? A new study shows that exclusively breastfed babies are 54% LESS likely to have a fever after being vaccinated. “When infants are sick and after a vaccination shot, they need not only water, food and a calm environment, but also to be protected,” said the lead author of the study. All things readily provided by breastfeeding.
Finally, Babes, we want to thank you for helping spread the word about Best for Babes on Facebook and getting us to our goal of 2,500 new “Likes,” and $2,500 from our sponsors. This week you were Overheard on Facebook talking about your nursing goals. You told us…
Dawn Davenport Covin with my first it was 1 year until I saw a lady (now friend) nursing an 18 month old and I asked myself why would I stop giving my baby my milk to give her cow’s milk? So, we went on to nurse for 26 months.
Claire Louise Hoyle I said 6 months and done!!! She self-weaned at 18 months and I was gutted!!! See how long we get second time as I have no goal……4 months so far….
Anna Caulkins Swank I never really set goals… always went with an “until they’re done” approach. That ended up being 10 months for Jonny, 20 months for Gracie, 18 months for Levi, and Reagan & Sera are still nursing at 22 months (and not showing any sign of stopping!)
Bear with me while I make an analogy between breastfeeding and fishing, and tell me if you think I’ve gone off the deep end.
There is an old saying: “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach a man a fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”
It would be easy to apply that to breastfeeding: “Give a newborn artificial baby milk, you feed him for a day; teach the baby’s mother to breastfeed, you feed, nurture and improve the health of both for a lifetime, so that mothers, babies, healthcare, employers, society and the planet benefit.”
Upon visiting this fishmarket in Catania, Sicily, I learned that aggressive industrial & commercial fishing threatens the livelihood of local, small-scale fishermen. It also destroys the breeding ground of the bluefin tuna, diminishes biodiversity and threatens the health of our planet.
But here’s the rub. What if it is not easy to teach a man to fish? What if men have had the best intentions of fishing, only to go to the lake, and find that the fish have been depleted by aggressive practices, or the waters polluted, or signs and fences put up threatening anyone who tries to fish? What if men were being told that fishing is great for them, and healthy too, but every day they are handed a bag of fast food which just seems so much easier than getting prepared for fishing, and putting in the time and effort to secure a good catch of fresh fish? What if the teachers who are supposed to teach men to fish are being bought out to promote fast food, too, because while fishing has huge long-term advantages, it takes just a little more work, a little more support? What if the few fishermen who succeeded in fishing, are heckled and jeered at? How many fishermen then, do you think, will really survive this process?
So that leaves the question. What do we do? Do we continue to try to teach the man to fish, one man at a time, and leave him to fend for himself against the forces that threaten the fishing industry? Do we continue to send mothers to support groups, or to get expert lactation counseling (if they can afford it), and stand by wringing our hands as they are being failed by the lack of a breastfeeding infrastructure, and are being undermined by barriers? Do we continue to tell them the benefits of fishing breastfeeding, and heap pressure on them while allowing them to be threatened and suffer botched and negative breastfeeding experiences? Do we wait for them to tell each other their horror stories–stories that did not need to be, most of which could have either been prevented or easily solved by preparation and early, proper lactation management–and discourage each other? Do we stand by as more mothers are robbed of an exquisitely intimate and precious experience with their babies that is as instinctive as kissing the ones we love?
There is another way, the way of social entrepreneurship. Ashoka Founder Bill Drayton, once famously said that “social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.”
Social entrepreneurs are “change agents,” creating “large-scale change through pattern-breaking ideas,” “addressing the root causes” of social problems, possessing “the ambition to create systemic change by introducing a new idea and persuading others to adopt it,” and changing “the social systems that create and maintain” problems. These types of transformative changes can be national or global. They can also often be highly localized—but no less powerful—in their impact. Most often, social entrepreneurs who create transformative changes combine innovative practices, deep and targeted knowledge of their social issue area, applied and cutting-edge research, and political savvy to reach their goals. For all entrepreneurs, whether in the business or social realm, innovation is not a one-time event—but continues over time.–Skoll Foundation
And that is precisely what the breastfeeding movement needs, and what Best for Babes aims to deliver: the passion, drive, creativity and innovation needed to revolutionize the breastfeeding movement and make it the Mother of All Causes. For this reason, we are going to be nominated for the prestigious Ashoka fellowship by a titan in the foundation world who believes that we fit the criteria of a social entrepreneur. It is a ridiculous long shot (past nominees have gone on to win the Nobel prize, haha) and we’ll just be honored to be nominated. Heck, we’ll just be excited to finish the draft application we started last year.
We need your help. These days, it takes a village to protect the mother so she can feed her baby; and we are building that village one volunteer, one advocate, one influencer, one donation at a time. It is your involvement, and your commitment to us, that will determine whether we succeed or fail. It is our collective collaboration that will determine whether we can bring together not only the 2% of women who made it to one year of breastfeeding exclusively (the “choir” most of us are preaching to) but the 72% of women–some three million every year–that try to breastfeed, and the billions more that wanted to breastfeed but were set up to fail. Moreover, let’s bring in those who are affected by a society that doesn’t support breastfeeding; the spouses, the employers, the health care system, the schools . . . and take to the streets, like those marching under the other pink ribbon, and race for the cure literally under our nose. Trust us, if we can get everyone past the destructive trio of pressure, judgment and guilt, and unite all who have been affected by “the booby traps,” our numbers will be greater than any other cause to date. It’s time to harness that formidable energy.
Will you join us? This year we have accomplished much to set this ball into motion–our innovative celebrity interviews and our groundbreaking ad campaign are gaining steam (80 blogs are now carrying it!). We are getting our message and our CREDO out into the media (through incredible coverage in SHAPE and Fit Pregnancy magazines among others), and we are the first non-profit to change the conversation by shifting the pressure OFF moms and on to the barriers that keep them from achieving their personal goals. Despite being “outsiders” to the medical/scientific world, we’ve won over the breastfeeding movement leadership (see left, we made the front page of an AAP newsletter!)– we brought down the house at the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, and we’re slated for the Healthy Children Conference and the United States Breastfeeding Committee Conference in January–trust us, our message will shake up the status quo. We have jumped headfirst into social media, becoming one of the fastest growing breastfeeding causes on Facebook and one of the only breastfeeding non-profits that is blogging and is active on Twitter. We have dazzled more potential corporate allies than we’ve been able to follow up with, and there is tremendous untapped opportunity here to follow in the footsteps of the great cause-related marketing campaigns.
Truthfully we’ve bitten off more than we can chew, and that is the curse of being passionately obsessed with social change: we can see so clearly what needs to happen to help moms and raise breastfeeding rates that we tend to ignore our very human limitations of time and funding. But that’s okay. As much as we’d like to be the type that does one thing and one thing well, instead of the type that sets a bazillion things in motion, we know that it is more important right now to act as a catalyst to put a little rocket fuel under this cause and elevate it to the stature that it deserves. There is much, much work to be done, but we know you will stand with us, shoulder to shoulder!
We are pleased to announce the winner of the Giveaway: Can this Book Change Our Culture! We were thrilled by the enthusiastic response to the contest which featured the book Breastfeeding with Comfort & Joy, by Laura Keegan, R.N., F.N.P. a nurse practitioner who has dedicated 20 years to helping mothers succeed with breastfeeding.
The winner is Cheryl Marian, who wrote:
Wow, reading your description and going to Laura’s website has sold me. I am a lactation consultant, volunteer at our local pregnancy center and give 2 hour breastfeeding classes for low income and other mothers who wish to attend. This book would be a wonderful resource to show in class and read excerpts to validate many of the points I teach. I would also, have the book available for lending on and off site for all mothers to read and to look at the real moms actually breastfeeding and loving their newborn/s and showing how involved fathers are also, even though baby is Breastfeeding. Thank you!
Congratulations Cheryl! (We have notified Cheryl that she is the winner, if we do not hear from her we will choose a runner-up.)
HURRAY: A Special, Limited Time Discount for You . . . And a Fundraiser for Best for Babes!
Because it was so difficult to choose the winner from dozens of wonderful comments, we asked Laura if she would be willing to offer a discount to anyone who wants to purchase the book, and she happily agreed! Not only that, but Laura offered to donate an additional $3 herself to the Best for Babes Foundation, to further our mission of Giving Breastfeeding a Makeover and Beating the Booby Traps so that moms can achieve their personal breastfeeding goals! Thank you Laura! To take advantage of this special, limited time offer:
Go to http://www.TheBreastfeedingBook.com and enter babes7 all lower case and no spaces in the Customer Code box on the left of the shopping cart page when ordering . You will receive $7 off (a 20% discount off the retail price of $35) of every book you purchase. Best for Babes will receive a donation of $3 from the author, Laura Keegan, for every book sold. Offer is good until 11/12/09, so act now!
This book makes the perfect gift for moms-to-be and is a great choice for the upcoming holidays!
Here are 3 ways you can help moms and babies by helping Best for Babes raise money for our cause:
1. BUY a book for yourself or a friend, for your local La Leche League Chapter, or your breastfeeding support group.
2. EMAIL friends and family about this offer by linking to this post. Put it on your shower, birthday or holiday wish list!
3. POST a link to this blog post on your Facebook page and tweet this link: http://bit.ly/3Q21zq on Twitter.
Thank you in advance for helping us spread the word and raise funds for this important cause, so that all parents can make an informed feeding choice without pressure, judgment or guilt and so they can achieve their goals and feel good about it! We think this is a wonderful book and leave you with these closing reviews:
“Breastfeeding with Comfort and Joy is magnificent. It’s like having a wise and loving grandmother show you exactly how to nurse your baby.”— Christiane Northrup, MD, author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom
“I have worked with Laura Keegan for nearly 20 years. Since her consultations with breastfeeding families are necessarily private, I never knew the secret(s) that made her patients so fiercely loyal and grateful. Well, here they are. Using beautiful images and clear, simple, accurate descriptions, Laura has created a manual of wisdom and celebration that should be read by anyone who is, has, or is going to breastfeed an infant.” —Larry Baskind, MD, FAAP
For actress Kelly Rutherford’s review of the book, click here.
Bestforbabes.org is the best thing to happen to breastfeeding since the invention of the breastpump! I LOVE the guilt/pressure free way you present everything. --Laura Rimbey, Oregon
@BestforBabes
Best For Babes
