Tuesday, December 17, 2002

Gene link to breastfeed crisis BBC NEWS | Health | , Monday, 16 December, 2002, 00:01 GMT

"Women who have problems breastfeeding may have a faulty gene, researchers have suggested.

Tests on mice found a specific gene was needed for them to be able to lactate.

The US researchers said the discovery could offer a genetic basis for breastfeeding problems, which are experienced by around 5% of women.

UK breastfeeding experts say some women experience problems, not because of genetics, but because they are not shown the best way to breastfeed their babies - and so give up." [The problem with this report is the statement that 5 per cent of women have problems breastfeeding - it leads to the conclusion that these are unresolvable problems, and, ahah! now we have a genetic reason. The five per cent figure isn't accurate and doesn't represent the percentage of women who have *unsolvable* breastfeeding problems. - JC]
Baring for a cause:
Nursing mums turn models
Channel NewsAsia,
By Tor Ching Li
"Let's make a clean breast of it: Public breast-feeding isn't common in Singapore, nor have the benefits of breast-feeding been given much exposure - till now.

Determined to bring to bare the benefits of mother's milk, a group of lactating mothers, ranging from housewives to lawyers, have come upfront to model with their breast-fed children for the "MummysMilk 2003 Breastfeeding Calendar".
The first of its kind to be published in Singapore, this calendar features breast-feeding mothers in action, with their infants latched on to them and suckling happily."
Birthday link to digestive disorder BBC NEWS | Health | December 17, 2002 ...
"Writing in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, the researchers say: "Children born during the summer, when there is an increased risk for coeliac disease, have been in utero mainly during the winter when there is the greatest risk for infections in the mother.

"Furthermore, children born in the summer are introduced to a dietary gluten and also frequently weaned off the breast during the winter when the likelihood of becoming infected is greatest."

The researchers suggest that the best way to reduce risk is to introduce gluten-containing foods to a child's diet in small amounts while breastfeeding is still taking place...."
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | 'He's like a little baby from Ethiopia isn't he?'

"Sophie Pierce on her son's 'gross failure to thrive'

Tuesday December 17, 2002
The Guardian

My baby Felix was born after an emergency caesarean section, which followed an induced labour. He was two weeks overdue, and the doctors did not want to wait. In retrospect, perhaps, he wasn't ready to be born, and his subsequent hunger strike was some form of protest."