My daughter had eczema for much of her first year.  Her face and other areas looked red and angry, and I knew that she was uncomfortable.

At around 15 months (I regret that we didn’t do it sooner) we had her tested for allergies, and she tested positive for allergies to a number of foods and trees.  (Eggs was one of them, and of course we learned this right after getting our own backyard chickens!)

Our allergist told us that in the long term we should be on the lookout for other problems, such as rhinitis and asthma.

Though he didn’t call it by this name, what the allergist was referring to was the “Allergic March” (sometimes called the “Atopic March”): a progression from one type of allergic disease to another, starting in early childhood.  A common pattern is eczema-rhinitis-asthma.

That’s why a new study from New Zealand caught my eye.  It was a large study of 1105 infants enrolled in a prospective birth cohort. The authors found:

After adjustment for confounders, each month of exclusive breastfeeding was associated with significant reductions in current asthma from 2 to 6 years of age. The largest effect was seen in children with atopy, in whom exclusive breastfeeding for at least 3 months reduced current asthma at ages 4, 5, and 6 years by 62%, 55%, and 59%, respectively.  [emphasis mine]

This makes me wonder if breastfeeding can halt the Allergic March in some way.

The effect of breastfeeding on risk of eczema and asthma has been well studied.  According to the Surgeon General, whose Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding included data from the 2007 Agency for Health Care Research and Quality meta-analysis (the biggest and most thorough analysis conducted to date), not breastfeeding results in the following increased risk:

• Eczema:  47%
• Asthma, with no family history:  35%
• Asthma, with family history:  67%

But this study is the first I’ve seen which suggests that breastfeeding might play a role in reducing the risk of children who have already started down the allergic path.

So, while it wouldn’t surprise me if my daughter gets caught up in the Allergic March, I’m glad that I did one thing which may lessen her risk.

Do your children have eczema, asthma, or rhinitis?  Do you think that breastfeeding can affect the Allergic March?

We haven’t seen the new movie, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, but were thrilled to hear from Diba Tillery of Babies411.com that our gorgeous ad posters made the cut, and can be seen in a couple of shots!   The hot Hollywood film, based on the best-selling book of the same name, opened on May 18th and stars Jennifer Lopez, Cameron Diaz, Elizabeth Banks, Anna Kendrick and Brooklyn Decker, Chace Crawford, Matthew Morrison, Dennis Quaid, Rodrigo Santoro and Chris Rock in a tale of how pregnancy changes the lives of 5 connected-to-each-other couples who have no idea of what is about to hit them.

The fact that the production company approached us about using our posters in the film was validation of the universal appeal of the provocative and eye-catching ads that Frank About Women created for Best for Babes. (You may remember that Frank About Women created our ad campaign pro-bono and that it ran in USA Today and Fit Pregnancy.)   We’re happy that millions of viewers will catch a glimpse of the ads, and we’re hopeful that our ads made some of the people involved with the movie think about the barriers to breastfeeding, and how we can inspire and empower moms to overcome them.   If you want to purchase the posters, click here–they’re great for waiting rooms, hospitals and clinics!

[Now all we need is the funding to put our ads in front of more people, and get them on subways, bus stations and billboards across the country!   For just $60,000 we would be able to do just that, by working with the Plowshare Group to leverage pro-bono media and ad space in buses, airports, magazines and other outlets in several metropolitan markets and nationally.   So, you ask, why do we need a national ad campaign when cities and states are running their own, such as the recent "Latch on NYC" ads that started appearing in subways in May?  The answer is that what works in marketing bombarding people with a single, effective, recognizable image and brand (like Geico's gekko, or This is Your Brain On Drugs), because it  imprints better on the human brain than a whole bunch of forgettable or ineffective ad campaigns developed with tiny budgets that can't compete with Similac.  So, any ideas on how we can fund up our ad campaign?]   

 What did you think of the “What to Expect” movie?    How was breastfeeding represented?   Did you spot any Booby Traps? 

Michelle Hickman and many Georgia moms now have sponsors behind their proposed bill to not only protect Peach State moms’ rights to breastfeeding in public, but also to enforce those laws so they’re more effective.

Breastfeeding women will gather on the West Lawn of the Capital building on August 4th to raise breastfeeding awareness.

A dedicated group of moms are seeking legislative change for the state of Idaho which will provide breastfeeding protection backed with enforcement provisions.

A refreshing change in tone from Lorain, Ohio’s Applebee’s restaurant where 15% of sales will be donated to the Mother’s Milk Bank of Ohio.

Mothers have formed around Human Milk 4 Human Babies founder Emma Kwasnica as well as all other breastfeeding moms to tell Facebook to stop banning moms over their nursing photos.

Alanis Morissette announced on Good Morning America today that she will breastfeed her son as long as he wants, even if that is age 5 or 6.   This is the strongest statement yet from the Grammy-award winning singer, who came out in support of attachment parenting in the wake of the controversial TIME cover of Jamie Grumet nursing her 3-year old.

Alanis Morrissette on Good Morning America, nursing her toddler!

We are so thrilled that Ms. Morissette, along with other celebrities who breastfed toddlers,  is helping to dispel the myths about “extended” or better yet, “full-term” breastfeeding.  We applaud ABC for showing a picture of Alanis Morissette nursing her toddler!   Morissette says, ” I don’t even consider it ‘extended’, I just consider it appropriate for that particular child, and that mom and that family”.   Woohoo!  We’ll bet that she’s read what Katherine Dettwyler told USA Today–that it’s quite possible that we are designed to nurse our young until they are 5 or 6.   Morissette also explained that she protects her son’s safety, well-being and attachment, and that “that stage of development is a very important stage.”   She acknowledged that she is a unique position of having the resources to do so, and that not all families do.   Hopefully she will join us in Beating the Booby Traps so that more moms can achieve their breastfeeding goals, whether those are for 2 days, 2 months or 2 years!

Here’s the clip from Good Morning America, filmed at The Pump Station, the awesome breastfeeding boutique in LA.  We applaud ABC for showing pictures of Alanis Morissette breastfeeding!   Do you think there’s any chance of getting Alanis Morissette to gently educate Whoopi Goldberg at The View?

If I told you that I exclusively fed my babies a sugary and indigestible food for six months, would you think less of me?  Wonder how they survived on a diet of Twinkies?  Consider calling child welfare?

Well I did, and it turns out it was great for them in ways we’re only just starting to discover.

Two studies published in the last few weeks have looked at oligosaccharides and the gut bacteria of breastfed babies, and the findings are contributing to a new and powerful understanding of their role in our babies’ health.

Oligosaccharides are carbohydrates (sugars) that are present in large numbers in breastmilk – in a higher amount than fat, in fact.  There are around 200 types of them in our milk.  One mother’s milk may have anywhere from 23 to 130 of them, and they vary by the mother’s blood type, but as one review concluded, “the functional implications of this diversity are not known.”

Oligosaccharides were once thought to be useless because 90% of them end up in the baby’s diaper.  They aren’t broken down in the baby’s stomach.  Instead, they travel unfazed to the large intestine.

For some time we’ve known that they serve special functions there, blocking antigens from attaching to the surface of the baby’s intestinal track, and maintaining a pH that is inhospitable to bad bacteria.  They’re known to be effective at blocking pneumococcus, a particularly “sticky” antigen, and some theorize that this blocking action may even explain why some HIV positive mothers don’t transmit the virus to their children through breastmilk.  Research dating a century back suggested that they serve as a food source for beneficial bacteria – what we now call a prebiotic (now interrupting your TV shows as Activia yogurt).

But it turns out that this understanding is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

Two new studies are demonstrating the power of oligosaccharides and the function of a healthy “microbiome” in a baby’s gut.  One study, from the University of Illinois, found:

Human milk oligosaccharides, or HMO, produce short-chain fatty acids that feed a beneficial microbial population in the infant gut.  Not only that, the bacterial composition adjusts as the baby grows older and his or her needs change.

For the first time, scientists have shown that a complex mixture of HMO and a single HMO component produce patterns of short-chain fatty acids that change as the infant gets older.

A healthy microbiome has both short- and long-term effects on an infant’s health. In the short term, beneficial bacteria protect the infant from infection by harmful bacteria. In the long term, beneficial bacteria strengthen the immune system so that it can fend off chronic health problems like food allergies and asthma, she says.

The other, from Texas A & M University, shows how a healthy microbiome in the gut is related to the immune system:

The results show that three-month-old babies that had been fed only breast milk had a wider range of bacteria in their guts than babies that were fed only formula.  The researchers also found a link between the bacteria in the babies’ guts and changes in the expression of genes involved in their immune systems.

…the researchers also found increased activity of immunity genes known to be involved in defending the gut tissue against foreign invaders, said study researcher Robert Chapkin, a professor of Nutrition, Biochemistry and Biophysicsat the Texas A&M University.

“Our findings suggest that human milk promotes the beneficial crosstalk between the immune system and microbe population in the gut, and maintains intestinal stability,” Chapkin said.

To summarize, not only do oligosaccharides block bad bacteria, feed good bacteria, and make the weather inhospitable to bad bacteria in the baby’s gut, they also change to meet the needs of growing babies.  Breastfed babies guts have a more diverse community of bacteria, and this may change the way the baby’s immune system functions by altering the way way its genes act.  (Altering gene expression is a particularly potent crime fighting power because changes to our “epigenome” may actually pass from one generation to the next.)

You may have heard that some formulas now include prebiotics, but as one comprehensive review of oligosaccharides concluded, “These infant formula oligosaccharides are not naturally present in human milk and are structurally different from the oligosaccharides naturally occurring in human milk (HMOs). Most of the effects attributed to HMOs appear to be highly structure dependent. Therefore, infant-formula oligosaccharides may have different effects than HMOs.”

Human milk evolved over thousands of years to provide just the right balance of nutrition and protection for infants.  So it was always silly of us to think that the complex sugars in breastmilk were “junk food.”  The hard, but intriguing work is figuring out exactly how they work.

In the midst of negative nursing in public incidents where business fall short on supporting breastfeeding moms and babies or upholding breastfeeding laws, I am excited to honor a business doing something positive. Which business is it?  The Applebee’s restaurant in Lorain, Ohio.

On Tuesday May 29th from 4pm-9pm, breastfeeding moms will nurse their babies while enjoying dinner with family and friends at this Applebee’s restaurant, and a generous 15% of the check will be donated to help the Lorain County Breastfeeding Coalition raise money for the Mothers’ Milk Bank of Ohio.

The Coalition is working to raise money for the milk bank through an upcoming “Milk Run,” a 5k run to be held during World Breastfeeding Week this year.  The run will be held on August 5th, and you can register online.

Not all breastfeeding moms live close enough to attend this local event, but they certainly can thank this Applebee’s restaurant by calling, sending e-mails, posting on their Facebook page and other social media, and most importantly patronizing this establishment.

Applebee’s certainly has won the heart of this breastfeeding mom. As some of you may remember, 97 Applebee’s restaurants were the focus of a nationwide nurse-in in 2007 when a mother was told to cover up while nursing her child, and they subsequently issued an apology and pledged to change their policies.  Their support of the Mother’s Milk Bank and nursing moms is a huge step forward, because it sets a powerful example of not only supporting breastfeeding and donor milk but also helps normalize nursing in public! I thank this Applebee’s restaurant for giving breastfeeding moms and babies cheers and not sneers, and pledge to visit Applebee’s with my family this week support a restaurant which supports breastfeeding moms.

To find out more on how you can attend the Lorain, Ohio Applebee’s night, visit the event page.

For an easy way to raise funds for the breastfeeding cause overall, join Team BfB!