milk of human kindness breastfeeding & infant nutrition

The big countdown

noreply@blogger.com (Jo Bradshaw) — Wed, 09 May 2007 11:47:00 +0000

Oh so much to do and so little time... UK breastfeeding week is almost here and some of you might be wondering why not much is happening with our local campaign around Bristol.. Well it's still there on the back burner pending funds and attention, but my time has been 110% taken up with all sorts of creative things for the wonderful Alison Baum who has spearheaded the new Breastfeeding Manifesto Coalition. Yippee and Yay, a proper formal gathering of interested and influential parties all of whom are commited to improving the sorry state of BF in England and Wales. So all my design skills have been put to good use doing the artwork and design for the BFM. Oh it will be worth it. It all launches in Parliament on May 16th 2007. If you haven't signed up for the Manifesto yet, or crucially, GOT YOUR MP to sign up, do it now http://www.breastfeedingmanifesto.org.uk. Thanks!

The big countdown

noreply@blogger.com (Jo Bradshaw) — Wed, 09 May 2007 11:47:00 +0000

Critical mass needed to change face of infant health

noreply@blogger.com (Jo Bradshaw) — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 10:53:00 +0000

One thing you'll notice if you've surfed the web in the UK and were looking for help and guidance on breastfeeding, or or just reassurance and motivation; up till now, there's been no cohesive effort, no multi-pronged government approach and certainly no financial backing for such an effort. Sure, lots of little people (like us) doing their bit and increasingly frustrated at the Government's dragging of heels.

The breastfeeding charities do an amazing job but they are running tight ships and need to put all their focus into front line support. If you've seen the recent billboard ads featuring a man with chest pains being graphically constricted by his own body, you've seen a public health campaign (run not by the DOH, but a heart charity ). Wouldn't it be great to have a collaborative, top level body to do this kind of promotion for infant health?

Well, now is a truly exciting time for everyone in this field due to the determination of one woman (and a growing band of supporters). Alison Baum, ex BBC science communicator and former founder of Express Yourself Mums, has spent the last couple of years doing hard graft to launch Best Beginnings (http//www.bestbeginnings.info) - a charity to reduce health inequalities in infant health. Her primary focus right now is to increase breastfeeding rates in the UK (both healthy babies and preterm). This lady deserves a medal and she certainly deserves all the support she can get, both financial and moral. Alison has been the driving force behind getting over 30 organisations together to form a coalition. The new Breastfeeding Manifesto Coalition has presented a document called the Breastfeeding Manifesto to Tony Blair and every MP, urging them to sign up to support seven key points. You can read about the Manifesto on http://www.breastfeedingmanifesto.org.uk. Please read, sign up and then use the interactive site to find out whether your local MP has also signed up. It's rather clever as you can then email them using ready made text so it's really not much work. You don't even need to know their name!

I have had the pleasure of meeting Alison as I've been doing some design work for her and the Manifesto. It is this sort of collaboration on a grand scale that will change the face of infant health in this country for good.

Well written piece in the Guardian

noreply@blogger.com (Jo Bradshaw) — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 23:46:00 +0000

An appetite for control

Blaming obesity on TV or junk food ignores the way we meddle with babies' natural feeding instincts

Annalisa Barbieri
Friday August 25, 2006
The Guardian

It's been firmly established that we are a nation of red-faced, thigh-chafing, huffing-like-a-steam-train fatties. A report published today by the Department of Health says that in four years 19% of boys and 22% of girls will be obese, and that Britain is now the second-fattest nation in the developed world.

Various villains are blamed - fizzy drinks, fast food, too much TV, not enough exercise. But in all the studies of obesity a key factor has been excluded. Too many chocolate bars, burgers and sugary drinks will undeniably make you fat; but the problem can start long before you eat any of these things. The way babies are fed in the early weeks of life is formative, and can put them on a path to obesity; it's a link that the Department of Health, for whatever reason, continues to overlook.

Nature dictated that we put babies to the breast to suckle, but along the way some parents have turned to bottlefeeding for a variety of reasons. However, the two methods of feeding are very different. When a baby breastfeeds it is an active relationship: the fat content of the milk changes during the feed so that the ratio of volume to energy is perfectly balanced according to what the baby needs at that time. The baby will stop feeding when it is satisfied, a signal brought on by its stomach - which is tiny - being full. This is a key factor in regulating appetite control, which is believed to be fixed in the early months of life.

Bottlefeeding overrides appetite control; it is possible to overfeed a bottlefed baby because the relationship is passive, the milk is easy for the baby to extract (it has to work to get it from the breast) and a parent can become fixated with the baby finishing the bottle. The amount of milk made up is, anyway, as instructed by the packet, when a baby's appetite is uniquely individual. Here, adults are in charge of how much a baby should eat, not the infant. The infant's stomach may be stretched, and the delicate balance between being full and telling the brain to stop eating - a key factor in overeating - is compromised.

In bottle milk the ratio of fat to volume never changes throughout a feed: it is set in a factory, not at the moment of a feed, and isn't dependent on a baby's requirements. A bottlefed baby consumes 30,000 more calories by the time it is eight months old than one that is breastfed: about the equivalent of 120 Mars bars. Then there are growth charts - used to worry parents that their baby isn't growing big enough fast enough, so encouraging them to feed their babies more (if breastfeeding, mothers are encouraged to supplement). Last year we were told that growth charts had been wrong for 40 years - asking for too steep a weight gain too early in life, another factor that predisposes you to being overweight in later life. A fat child is likely to become a fat adult.

Screwing up a child's ability to control its appetite continues beyond breastfeeding, when solids are introduced: often too early, often incorrectly, because of the advice of a legion of health professionals. Again, the adult decides when a child should eat by spoonfeeding pureed vegetables and fruit. This is not how infants should be fed if they are to retain appetite control; they should be given access to healthy finger foods around the middle of the first year and left to feed themselves. (Meat is an ideal first food as it contains nutrients that an infant starts to need at this age.)

But this is messy, and we don't like to give children control. We become fixated with them clearing their plate, when their own instincts help toddlers eat perfectly well. They eat to fuel growth, which means some days they don't need very much; they eat when they're hungry and stop when they're full. How many of us could learn from this.

annalisa.barbieri@guardian.co.uk

Icons for breastfeeding, birth of a strategy, musings and more.

noreply@blogger.com (Jo Bradshaw) — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 22:52:00 +0000

After a frantically busy period (of little blogging, sorry) we are just taking time to assess our next steps. What is the best way to take our campaign forward? How can we best make breastfeeding normal and wean infants off a junk food culture? Our thoughts are heading more and more to a social enterprise, co-operative or business which has its own bona fide revenue and ability to grow, plough money back into our cause and raise the profile that way through its own success. We've got some cool ideas for products and services we know there is a demand for and our thoughts go a little like this: surely by serving a need by providing ethically sound, fashionable and desirable products and services that will in their own right act as messengers by their very existence (and success we hope), we are more likely to build exactly the type of organisation we would like to work in and could ourselves act as a role model. We would be able to provide resources for subcampaigns ourselves through apportioning profits directly, involve the community, and also reduce the need for restrictive (and prescriptive) grant dependency.

So we're doing our homework, talking seriously to a mentor, and trying to organise our thoughts and ever increasing web presence into a bold strategy. Oh, and in the meantime, I did this for fun: here's one of my entries to the Mothering magazine's call for a new universal breastfeeding icon. (The 'normal) is for dramatic effect and not part of the icon. What do you reckon?

Squids In!

noreply@blogger.com (Jo Bradshaw) — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 15:22:00 +0000

Just a quick note to celebrate my new status as Squidoo Lensmaster. Oooooh! For the uninitiated, check it out using the button in the sidebar. Now that's progress, innit.
xox Jo

Hot and thirsty work (and not just me!)

noreply@blogger.com (Jo Bradshaw) — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 01:29:00 +0000

Amie and I have been out on the campaign trail this week signing up restaurants and cafes to our charter which asks establishments to

"protect and respect a child's right to be breastfed whenever they need it, not to ask nursing mothers to move or cover up, but to welcome them and treat them like any other customer"

. We've had a great reaction so far with most places saying they are already completely welcoming towards bf mums. They are supportive of our window stickers and tend to agree with our point that although they may have a bf-friendly policy, it's not advertised and new mums with low confidence just need that extra little boost before they nurse in public (NIP). A lovely Italian cafe owner today offered me an avocado and honey smoothie to quench my thirst (Amber was quenching hers on the boob). But even she was distracted enough to down half of my smoothie and then casusally switch back to yours truly.

Breastfed Babies Eat Out

noreply@blogger.com (Jo Bradshaw) — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 01:07:00 +0000

We are very excited and very tired and it's all go to get our Breastfed Babies Eat Out campaign on the road in time for World Breastfeeding Week 1 - 7th August! We've got some rather lovely organic retro tees in cafe au lait colours (see pics) which we'll be selling online (if only I could work out how to get my automatic PayPal integration thingy to actually work and not just dump me in the sandpit. Sandbox, whatever. We'll be hounding all the restaurateurs in Bristol to display stickers welcoming breastfed babies and their people and ignore them with nonchalance and grace in a 'breastfeeding in here is soo normal I wouldn't bat an eyelid' way, whilst giving them the odd free cuppa or kir royale. We've had a photoshoot today with the kids wearing our organic baby tees, and we have to admit, they are very cute. The messages read 'Real yummy mummies breastfeed' and 'Reduce food miles. breastfeed.' Indeed. Janine at charity t-shirts has been a very patient lady sweltering in the 35 C heat to get our samples made up in her ever-so-tiny shop in Bristol but we reckon it'll all be worth it if we can raise buckets of cash to help reclaim breastfeeding.

What else is new? Well, I've put a pledge on pledgebank to try to get some free advertising space in the national press. It's a bit dire, that it's down to individuals and charitable organisations to 'advertise' breastfeeding. The Government spends a fortune on making sure everyone has TV licences and knows all about the big switch to digital, but to spend on pushing something fundamental to our health like breastfeeding?! Naaah.

I've also been on the excellent site whattogive.com (actually to do with my brother's wedding list) but I saw the opportunity to post up our own funding wishlist, and so a truly great way to donate to very specific aspects of our cause is to give this site a visit. I'm putting up a permanent link on the right there, please look. I really need to sort out this PayPal thing, finish designing the stickers, postcards, I think Aime is writing some press releases and gadzooks, it's almost 3am and there's so much to do. Wish us luck. Later, Jox

Paediatric nutrition as a clinical discipline

noreply@blogger.com (Jo Bradshaw) — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 00:09:00 +0000

I came across this press release the other day from the UCL Institute of Child Health at Great Ormond Street Hospital. I was surprised at the announcement that heading up the UK's first stand-alone centre for paediatric nutrition would be the UK's first ever medical consultant in the discipline. Surprised, that, is, that this post and this facility didn't already exist. This just confirmed my deepest suspicions that for many in this country, early years nutrition just isn't given consideration. Breastfeeding is dismissed as 'unimportant' or 'irrelevant' and its long term positive effect on health denied. Just last week I was in a meeting at which a representative from a regional council who sits on local health boards told me that 'the jury was still out' on whether there was any long term health benefit to the child from breastfeeding. I just looked at her with popping eyes while my brain ticked over all the consequences of this stance. I thought about the key decision makers, doler-outers of cash in a cash-strapped NHS and how if they couldn't see an unequivocal need to promote breastfeeding for short term and long term health, how the hell will the bf message trickle down through overworked, and undermotivated health visitors, a great many of whom seem completely ambivalent about whether their clients breastfeed or not. Of course, there are some really passionate, bf-focused health visitors out there who have put themselves out to support it, but the anecdotal evidence I constantly see is that there is a lack of consistent support to new mothers both at the hospital and in the critical days and weeks after birth.

So, this is a very timely new development indeed. Quoting Prof Alan Lucas, who has led the fundraising for the new centre, 'Most parents want and need nutritional advice and there is great concern about obesity. But there is also informed concern about how nutrition and growth in early life affects long term health, such as risks of heart attack, and mental ability. For example, ‘slow grown’ babies appear to have lower risk of heart disease and diabetes in later life. Feeding in the first few weeks appears significantly to affect adult health. New research is changing our ideas and this must be accurately conveyed to parents.

“Almost every sick baby in neonatal intensive care has crucial nutritional problems – and the way they are handled can have a profound effect on their health in later life, emphasising the need for high quality practice." '

I take it 'slow grown' means breastfed. You can't fail to notice all the little 'michelin man' chubby babies out there who are formula fed and positively rolling in fat compared to their sleeker breastfed counterparts. I'd like Prof Lucas or one of his colleagues to do us all a big favour and translate some of his most compelling research on the topic into everyday terms for us proles to understand. I'll help get the facts out there. I'll do anything I can to get the message out. When I was thinking about the key policy makers and purse string holders within our health service, I couldn't help but speculate on how many of them were breastfed themselves. Many would have been products of our first 'big formula experiment' and I guess the fact that their own parents bottlefed them (and so they'd be more likely to bottlefeed their own children) means that they might have grown up with very few breastfeeding role models. So to admit not only that breastfeeding is 'best' for long term health, but also that artificial feeding is worse (as if bf is the physiological norm, then formula is subnormal and has negative health impact) would be admitting a flaw in themselves, or facing up to the idea that they might have 'damaged' their own children. And that would be hard, right? Am I being cynical, yes. Speculative, yes. Off the mark? You tell me. Check out my 'manifesto' here.

I am a hungry baby. Mama! No! not the formula! Eeek. Zonk.

noreply@blogger.com (Jo Bradshaw) — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 22:34:00 +0000

Well hello.

So, I'm Jo and this is a blog about something that's been bothering me for a while. It's been building up in my heart and head, and keeping me awake at night. It got to the point where I knew I had to act, so, together with my dear friend Amie, I've set up a website called www.milkofhumankindness.org.uk. It's a medialab, collaboration, resource centre all rolled into one (but it's only an ickle baby at the moment). What's it for? Well, to take a pickaxe to the ginormous wall of ignorance, misinformation and downright stigma attached to parents who choose to breastfeed, who choose, in spite of *advice* from certain health *professionals* to do this to give their children the normal, natural superfood that is their birthright, and to spurn the overprocessed babyfood industry that proves such a gauntlet to run by throwing endless pots of money after new mums and dads.

Why the focus on infant nutrition? Well, there has been a lot of attention recently in the UK paid to school age children after our cheeky chap Jamie Oliver went and showed on national TV what a scandalous farce school dinners have become. This is great, and long overdue, and by no means happened overnight (as long serving campaigners like the Soil Association will vouch). But what about the babies? The first few days, weeks, months and years are so vital to health, both physical and mental. And somehow in the last couple of generations it has become *okay* to substitute a live and vital food (breastmilk) with the garbage that is touted as some kind of magic *formula*. So much so that mothers who do choose to breastfeed are vilified. What kind of insane universe is this?

So check out the site for our manifesto, and throw your welly in too if you want to contibute to the cause. See you later. xxx Jo