Showing posts with label breastfeeding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label breastfeeding. Show all posts

03 October 2014

It’s what your boobs are for #nlpoli

The first week of October is World Breastfeeding Week.

Check out babyfriendlynl.ca and you can find information on some of the activities going on across the province.

Breastfeeding is the SRBP cause,  for those who don’t know.  Check out this post from 2009 that proposes a provincial goal for breastfeeding that we can achieve:  66 at 6 in 2.  66% of newborns need to be breastfeeding at six months old. We can get from where we are to that 66% target in two years.

The current rates are way lower than that.

We can turn that around.

All we have to do realise it’s more important to get more of our babies on the tit instead of more local politicians.

-srbp-

28 February 2014

14 years to deliver on 2008 midwives promise #nlpoli

In the fall sitting of the House of Assembly in 2008, the provincial government repealed an old law regulating the practice of midwifery.

Then-health minister Ross Wiseman introduced the repeal bill at second reading and promised to replace it with a new law:

We envisage under the new legislation midwifery being an autonomous profession, separate and apart from nursing. [Hansard, 01 Dec 08]

The Health Professions Act – passed by the House of Assembly in 2010 – made it possible for government to set up midwives as a small, self-regulating profession.

After another four years, you’d think we might be a bit closer to what Wiseman originally promised.  If you thought that, you’d be wrong.

12 April 2012

Breastfeeding Controversy for HITS FM #nlpoli

HITS FM morning crew  has stirred a bit of controversy for his remarks on April 11 about breastfeeding.

There’s an excellent account of it at Meeker on Media.  The HITS crew gained the ire of Tara Bradbury for his remarks about celebrity Mayim Bialik who is breastfed her son when he was aged three and a half years.

Bradbury commented , in part:

Beyond the surprise, I'm disappointed that Randy, being in a position of celebrity in this province, would help perpetuate a stigma that our Department of Health, hospitals, public health nurses and other health groups have been busting their butts for years trying to eradicate. 90% of Canadian moms choose to start breastfeeding their newborns; in this province, only 63% do. By the time these babies are six months old, only 10 per cent of them are still breastfed.

She’s right.  Breastfeeding rates in this province are appallingly low.

You can find the audio file on the HITS FM website.  That link came via Dara Squires’ blog where you’ll find even more on this controversy.

Scroll down a bit in her piece and you will find a link to a Canadian Public Health Association paper on breastfeeding in this province.  it dates from 2006 but the information is still pretty much the state of affairs today.

The provincial government still doesn’t have a breastfeeding policy.

Figuring out a policy really isn’t all that hard to do.  You have to wanna.

Breastfeeding:  it’s what your tits are for.

- srbp -

30 September 2011

Breastfeeding: it’s what your tits are for #nlpoli

The first week of October is World Breastfeeding Week.

Check out babyfriendlynl.ca and you can find information on some of the activities going on across the province.

Regular readers of these e-scribbles will know that breastfeeding is the local cause of choice.  Some people questioned a sub-head on the blog that lasted for a long while last winter:  Breastfeeding: it’s what your bazongas are for.  Initially, they took offence or thought it might be offensive. 

But after your humble e-scribbler explained where the slogan came from and that breastfeeding is the SRBP cause, they called off the lynching.

You can find a post from 2009 that sets what should be the provincial goal:  66 at 6 in 2. 

Let’s to the point where 66% percent of new moms are breastfeeding six months after they’ve given birth.

And we set a goal of two years to hit that target.

66 at 6 in 2.

Make it an election issue. 

And in the meantime, be inspired by this promotional video:



- srbp -

04 February 2011

Why don’t more women breastfeed their babies?

Good question.

You’ll find one woman’s take on it at cbc.ca/nl

Beware, though, of one figure that is likely off.  Both Debbie Cooper and Pam Pardy-Ghent claim that 66% of new mothers breastfeed their babies. 

That might be the number who start breastfeeding when the baby is born. Some call it the initiation rate.

The last time your humble e-scribbler checked the local stats the percentage still at it six months after the baby was born was a tiny fraction of that figure.

Try 11 or 12 percent.

And that’s really where the challenge lies.  The overwhelming majority of women who start breastfeeding just don’t manage to keep at it. 

We need to get to 66% still breastfeeding at six months in.  That’s a figure we can reach in this province within two years with just a modest effort by the provincial government. and community groups.

66 at 6 in 2.

Simple.

Practical.

Attainable.

Breastfeeding  it’s what your bazongas are for.

- srbp -

05 October 2010

Breasts: they’re not just for gawking at

This is important.

66 at 6 in 2: We need to get 66% of new mothers still breastfeeding their newborns at six months and we need to do that within two years of making the commitment.

And if you want to know how far the province has come since 2006, let’s just say that the numbers today likely aren’t remarkably better than they were back then.

If we wait for politicians, nothing will ever get done.

October 1-7 is Breastfeeding Awareness Week.

Don’t just stand there staring.

Lead by example in your own little corner of the universe.

66 at 6 in 2.

BFG-ads-6 - srbp -

11 October 2009

66 at 6 in 2

Once it was a million dollars, but heck if there was only a half a million there are better things to do with it than give it to Rolls-Royce or any other company that could get along without it and still create jobs in Mount Pearl.

And heck, I wouldn’t be pumping cash into getting more women to have babies

I’d put the money into looking after the ones we have and are having. Your humble e-scribbler would support breast feeding in Newfoundland and Labrador.

It’s good, preventive health care.

It helps change attitudes toward women way better than being crude and beating the crap out of Randy Simms for something he didn’t say.

There is a campaign apparently, as this story from The Aurora notes.

"We are launching this campaign in Labrador-City Wabush to highlight the success this region has had in promoting breastfeeding," Ms. Murphy Goodridge said during the launch. "Labrador-Grenfell Health is the first regional health authority in the province to implement a comprehensive regional breastfeeding policy based on international standards. Breastfeeding rates throughout Labrador have always been higher than the rest of the province, so I am here to recognize Labrador-Grenfell Health employees and their community partners on their tremendous success and to encourage them to continue to strive to improve breastfeeding rates. Other areas of the province are looking to replicate your success."

According to the article the province-wide initiation rate is a mere 64%.  That’s up a mere 1.3% since 2006. The old article had an old link to the Breastfeeding Coalition:  here’s the new one.

And initiation isn’t the telling factor.  Three years ago only 11% of mothers who started breast-feeding were still breast-feeding six months later. Women aren’t sticking with it. The rate by 2008 was a mere 12%.  That’s basically no change.

Whatever the ponderous government agencies have been doing ain’t enough.  Maybe we need to free-up the people actually running the programs and get a lot of that health care bureaucracy and stodgie government-ish thinking get out of the way.

And lookit, nothing would work to start our children out healthier than to encourage breastfeeding.

The BFC has a campaign to boost breastfeeding but frankly a few posters ain’t gonna do the job.  The campaign needs to have a much higher profile.  For one thing, there could be a group of prominent local someones in addition to all the other stuff outlined in the BFC strategic plan to help reinforce the message about breastfeeding.

And rather than just talk about the need for supportive environments, people need to start initiating action.  There needs to be a concerted effort to make the workplace more tit-friendly, for example.  There needs to be a much wider effort to make more parts of society accepting of breastfeeding.

So there’s an idea.

mom-breastfeeding Rather than kick Randy Simms in ‘nads for something someone misheard or deliberately misrepresented, maybe someone could have done something positive like asked him about the City of Mount Pearl’s breast-feeding policy. 

Are women councillors who are breastfeeding their children able to do so during a council meeting or a committee meeting? 

What about the provincial government?

Was Charlene Johnson able to get her little one to latch on while Danny was in full rant around the cabinet table?   Not ideal for the digestion, admittedly, but still,  you get the point.

And what was all that with her having to get back to work a mere month after giving birth supposedly – and the emphasis is on supposedly – because there was no maternity leave policy in the House of Assembly?

Pish-posh.

Talk about your unfriendly work environment for women.  Now I may have missed it but I don’t recall anyone from PACSW championing that cause at that time.  There’s one for the government appointed pseudo-bureaucrats to tackle.

But there’s an example of simple issue that directly affects the ability of women to get involved and/or stay involved in many more aspects of life outside the family once they start having children.

Simple.

Practical.

Effective.

And everyone wins in so many ways.

People in Newfoundland and Labrador need to get involved in an effort to dramatically increase the breastfeeding rates in this province.

What’s been going on already is great but it isn’t enough.  Clearly.  Not enough.

So on this thanksgiving weekend, let’s applaud the efforts of the provincial Breastfeeding Coalition.  Let’s applaud Labrador West with the highest initiation rate – 75% – in the whole province.

But let’s recognise that that 75% is still 15% below the national average.

And we need to get some kind of “66 at 6 in 2” drive going to ensure that  within two years, we have 66% of mothers in the province still breastfeeding their infants six months after giving birth.

-srbp-

Some ideas for 66 at 6 in 2

A better website.  It’s do-able and younger families are more likely to use the Internet for information.  The current one is buried away and it doesn’t have the kind of simple stuff you’ll find elsewhere.  A good example of a BF supportive site:  the US government one.  There are lots of others.

-  Paul Daly’s shot is great but there is a need to use a much more aggressive approach with messages tailored to different audiences.  And for mercy sakes don’t post the poster as a pdf.   You can get some ideas from this approach mapped out by students in the UK.

-  Nothing work better at changing attitudes and behaviour than making it clear that the dominant attitude has shifted.  People openly supporting breastfeeding – highlighted by some prominent locals – would start the ball rolling.

-  And just do it.  Nothing will work better than having the women who are breastfeeding just doing it.

05 November 2007

Don't show us your tits: the media coverage

Cheryl Cruz's sorry experience at Universal Studios Florida has turned into a bit of a media storm for the entertainment giant.

Local Orlando news has picked it up, including wftv.com which is running a poll on the question of public breastfeeding.

There's even been some chatter on an Internet discussion group.

One employee makes a mistake.

A media controversy ensures; let's see how big the controversy gets.

-srbp-