By Elita of Blacktating.com for the Best for Babes Foundation ©2010

This week one of my favorite shows, Top Chef, returned to TV and we got to see how fabulous new motherhood has been to host Padma Lakshmi. Padma was nursing daughter Krishna during taping this season, so she was exposed to all kinds of interesting flavors through Padma’s breast milk. “She will have the greatest palate in the world!” said proud mommy Padma.

Speaking of celebrity breastfeeding moms, this week we gave a virtual high-five to blogging breastfeeding mom Kourtney Kardashian. On her Celebrity Baby Blog post this week, Kourtney talked about traveling with her nursling and how breastfeeding can make flying easier and less stressful for both mom and baby!  On the other hand, sister Kim echoed much of our popular anti-breastfeeding culture when she tweeted her squeamishness about moms nursing in public without a coverup this past weekend, setting off a lactivist twitter storm.  Artist Kate Hansen wrote a great blog post about it. After the backlash, Kim retreated a bit, saying she thinks breastfeeding is beautiful and natural, but that her sister always uses a cover-up.  We hope Kim Kardashian will take a moment to put herself in a breastfeeding mom’s shoes, and will also read phdinparenting.com’s post about covering up to understand why mothers should do what makes THEM comfortable.

Although it’s probably a lot easier to be a working & nursing mom when you’re a celebrity like Padma or Kourtney, we still believe your boss wants you to breastfeed. In an excellent blog post on Yahoo! Shine, the founder of nursing clothing line HadleyStilwell offers suggestions on how to advocate for time and space to pump at work. She offers some great information on what you should ask for and what to say if you get some pushback from your employer or co-workers.

New research is confirming that if HIV positive mothers take antiretrovirals, they can reduce the transmission of HIV through breast milk by as much as 99%! Another study also found that giving infants antiretrovirals also reduced the chance they would contract HIV through breastfeeding. This is wonderful news for moms around the world, but particularly for those in developing nations with high rates of HIV/AIDS.

Has your breastfeeding relationship changed your life to the point where you have considered becoming an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) and sitting for the exam? If so, you may want to check out the new requirements for becoming an IBCLC that will go into effect in 2012. The new eligibility requirements only affect first-time exam takers and call for more college level courses in the health sciences.

When you had your baby, did you worry about being able to make enough milk? Shari Criso, a friend of Best for Babes, often talks about trusting your body to do what it’s supposed to while breastfeeding the same way you did while pregnant. Did you ever worry if you were making enough amniotic fluid? Of course not! You trusted the process, even though you couldn’t see inside your uterus. I loved this opinion piece in The Sun because the author also worried about making enough milk, but learned to trust her body to know what her baby needed, and didn’t allow pressure from her pediatrician or the formula companies to shake her belief in herself.

Finally, we hope you had an amazing Father’s Day and were able to celebrate the man in your life! Don’t forget to enter our NonBooby Bonding giveaway for dads, which includes skin care products and an ErgoBaby Carrier!