Wondering what I’ve been doing in Vermont? I’ve been taking The Center for Breastfeeding‘s class to become a Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC). I’ll spend more time when I get home talking about the AMAZING time I had this week, but in the meantime I want to share a few of my favorite discoveries of the week with you.
- Healthy People 2020 Goals: Increase the proportion of infants who are breastfed — Ever 81.9%, At 6 months 60.5%, At 1 year 34.1%, Exclusively through 3 months 44.3%, Exclusively through 6 months 23.7%
- The fat content in milk is changed by the way it is taken from the breast – I.e. the previous idea that hind milk is better (fattier) than fore milk is false, afternoon milk has more fat than any other time, and mothers of male infants produce milk with 25% more energy content than mothers of female infants.
- There are two types of mammals – “nesting” mammals like deer, dogs and cats that leave their young somewhere in between feedings spaced further apart, and “carry/follow” mammals like goats, horses and monkeys that take their babies with them for more frequent, almost continual feedings. Nesting mammals have milk that is high in protein and fat, but low in lactose and water; carry mammals are the opposite. Can you guess which group humans belong to? (And which group we wish we belonged to?)
- Mama’s water consumption has no effect on lactation, either in terms of yield or composition of milk. This is a myth that I believed to be true before this week.
- Brazil, which has fabulous breastfeeding rates (a median duration of 10 months) , helped support new mothers by training all mail carriers as lactation counselors [PDF]. How incredibly awesome and out of the box is that?
I could keep going and going, but I’m going to save some for a few more detailed posts next week. So, in the spirit of Surfing Saturday variety, here’s a little bit of Etsy Love:
1. Waft … Blue Cocktail Dress 2. Enchanted Butterfly Garden Silver Locket Necklace 3. Custom 15 inch cloth doll 4. Mr Hooters – matte silver necklace 5. Expecto Patronum – Harry Potter – 5 x 7 Typographic Print 6. Crochet boho winter headband 7. Colorful Wrist Warmers 8. Retro Hello Kitty 8-Count Crayon Keeper 9. Flmeluvr Watercolor trees
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