Would you like to feel better breastfeeding?

Would you like to feel better breastfeeding?
EPIBi Nursing Pads

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

breastfeeding reduces vaccination pain

As a parent, I used to watch our son receive painful vaccination and allergy shots without any anesthesia. The only thing I could offer was a tight hug, often inviting disapproving looks from nurses and physicians.

According to the American Nursing Association's Smartbrief, a new Turkish study published in March, 2009 issue of the Journal of Pediatrics, breastfeeding significantly reduced vaccination pain in babies. When pediatricians measured crying time and pain (Infant Pain Scale and Children's Pain Scale) during vaccination in children between ages of 6 to 48 months, breastfed babies suffered less pain .

Children who received either sucrose (sugar water) or lidocaine-prilocaine (cream) also had reduced pain, but the cream is expensive and more time consuming.
ellyhann@persimmonscientific

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Breastfeeding and Obesity

I recently read about a celebrity who stated that the secret to her slim figure is breastfeeding.

How many of you nursing moms think that's true?

Dr. Yvonne E. Vaucher wrote in the San Diego County Breastfeeding Coalition's Breastfeeding Update newsletter in April 2006 that "Breastfeeding, compared to formula feeding will not prevent obesity. The protective effect of breastfeeding on overweight and obesity is small, but real and of significant public health impact."

Given that obesity in the U.S. is of epidemic proportions, if breastfeeding can help you achieve healthy weight a little faster, it certainly would be significant.

Your comments are welcome.

Elly Hann
ellyhann@epibinursingpads.com

Friday, August 14, 2009

Thrush (yeast infection) in breastfeeding women

Recent increase in diabetes in U.S. population is a big concern. Diabetes is becoming more prevalent in younger people due to obesity.

Diabetes will increase complications for pregnant women, including thrush during breastfeeding. High glucose level will encourage colonization of Candida Albicans (yeast germ that causes thrush) on the nipple, breast tissue, and vagina. Their infants will be more likely to be infected by Candida during birth.

Thrush during breastfeeding can be serious, because it can cause mastitis, infection and of breast. It appears to be more common than physicians, nurses, or lactation specialists have suspected. Diagnosis is a challenge, so when nipple pain is accompanied by other signs of infection, such as redness, swelling, or itchiness, etc., a nursing mom should promptly see a physician or a lactation specialist.

I also wonder if certain types of nursing pads promote thrush. Yeast loves dark, moist, warm places, such as skin condition during breastfeeding. No clinical trials have been done to study how some nursing pads are linked to breast infections.

EPIBi(TM) nursing pads by Persimmon Scientific offers nursing pads impregnated with germ-killing activity against Candida Albicans, MRSA, and Pseudomonas germs.
These nursing pads are undergoing their first production, and they are expected on the market in mid-October, 2009.

Would love to hear back from readers about your experiences with thrush. Elly Hann
ellyhann@epibinursingpads.com

Urgent call to action to boost breastfeeding

According to the HealthDay Reporter, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Women's Health are holding a conference to get more women to breast-feed.

By the time their babies were 6 months old, only 32 percent of women were still breast-feeding in 1999, compared with 43 percent in 2005-06. And by the time the babies were 1 year old, the number had declined even further: to 15 percent in 1999 and 22 percent in 2005-06.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization recommend that mothers exclusively breast-feed their infants for the first six months of life and then continue the practice with other nutrition thereafter.

Public policy push such as this will also encourage physicians, nurses, midwives, and dullas to openly discuss breastfeeding with their patients. It's about time.

Elly Hann
ellyhann@epibinursingpads.com