Due to the 4th of July holiday, this month’s meeting will be held on Thursday, August 2nd at 10 AM at the Panera in North Fayette (by Walmart) in the VIP room.
If you have any questions, please contact us!
You can also find more information about our monthly meetings here.
We look forward to seeing you and your little ones!
Photo by Leandro Cesar Santana on Unsplash
Breast milk has exactly the right balance of fat, protein and carbohydrates but it is so much more than the perfect food for babies. Kelly Durbin, a LLL Leader, Certified Breastfeeding Counselor, childbirth educator and holistic health coach in Phoenix, AZ, writes about how breastfeeding is a complex communication system between a mother and child. Read more on the La Leche League Breastfeeding Today blog: Breastfeeding: Communication and Calories.
The positive health effects of breastfeeding for mothers are often mentioned, but this article on the Women’s Health Today blog reversed it and looked at the risks of NOT breastfeeding. This fascinating article written by Barbara Higham discusses in detail what the research tells us. Some examples:
Read more here: Health Implications for Breastfeeding Mothers
Teresa Pitman writes on the Women’s Health Today blog about how important it is to respond to your baby’s cries. …”more recent research is showing that responding to your crying baby protects him or her against future mental health problems and negative reactions to stress. ” She talks about how you don’t have to be a “perfect” mom but that just by responding and being there you can make a huge difference in the amount of stress your baby has in the early months of life. There are actually many benefits of crying for babies, including getting plenty of breastmilk and staying safe.
In Western culture, parents can sometimes be made to feel that responding attentively to their little ones is “spoiling them” or teaching them to continue to cry. But research has found the opposite to be true.
“For one thing, parents are often warned not to do the things that traditional parents naturally do to soothe their babies when they cry. Research by Barr and others has shown that babies cry only half as much when parents carry them in close contact (skin to skin as much as possible), sleep next to them, feed them very frequently, and respond quickly if they cry or fuss. But most parents in Western societies are told that these soothing actions will “spoil” the baby or that the baby is being “manipulative,” so the baby cries more and more, and the parent gets more and more frustrated.
For another, many parents don’t have someone to lend a hand when the crying starts to wear them down. Your brain may be saying “Respond to that baby” but your body is saying “Sleep, need sleep!” That’s when having a grandmother, partner, postpartum doula, or other support person can make all the difference, giving the mother a break while still reassuring the baby that someone is here to hold him and he is safe.”
The author concludes that what we should be doing is encouraging mothers to follow their instincts and soothe their babies.
You can read the complete article here.
A team of chemists and doctors at Vanderbilt University recently published a video detailing their amazing research finding that “some of the carbohydrates in human milk not only possess antibacterial properties of their own but also enhance the effectiveness of the antibacterial proteins also present.” View the short video clip here on YouTube:
