Wednesday, December 11, 2002

Don’t take my baby away from me! The Manila Times Internet Edition | LIFE & TIMES >
Saturday, December 7, 2002

Don't take my baby away from me!
By Erwin Cabucos

If you tell a Filipino mother to get rid of her baby from her bed and leave the baby in a crib in a separate bedroom, she?ll more likely shake her head at you and tell you to back off.

The practice of co-sleeping is synonymous to bringing up kids in the Philippines. With our population rate, it would no longer be a surprise if someone claims that we are one of the top doers of co-sleeping in the world.

Our forebears had been doing it for thousands of years. Is it because we are scared of halimaw or aswang that if we leave our baby in a separate bedroom, the baby-eating creature will open the window and take our baby away? Is it because we often have big families and we simply run out of bedrooms? Or is it because we strongly believe that by instinct a mother finds it hard to separate herself from her young at such an early age?
Newsday.com - Got Milk? Hope You're Not a Working Mom
By Linda M. Blum
Linda M. Blum, author of"At the Breast: Ideologies of Breastfeeding and Motherhood in the Contemporary United States," teaches sociology and women's studies at the University of New Hampshire.

December 11, 2002
A new study showing soaring rates of breast-feeding in the United States is being widely celebrated. The survey of 400,000 new moms in the journal Pediatrics found that 70 percent nursed their newborns before leaving the hospital - the highest percentage in modern history.
This may be good news for American babies, but for American moms there is more to the story. With a scarcity of family-friendly policies, many make infant-feeding choices amid guilt, exhaustion, embarrassment and financial worry.

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

The Sacramento Bee -- sacbee.com -- A father's quest


Tom Mooers of Nevada City pauses as he discusses his wife, Sarah Forslund, who died shortly after giving birth to Wesley, now 6 months old.
Sacramento Bee / Lezlie Sterling
A father's quest

After his wife's death, he seeks insurance coverage for breast milk

By Dorsey Griffith -- Bee Medical Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PST Friday, December 6, 2002
NEVADA CITY -- Wesley Forslund-Mooers is a sturdy 6-month-old with rosy cheeks and lively blue eyes. He scoots. He rolls. He coos. And he offers his toothless smile to anyone who catches his eye.

His robust health, says his dad, is due in large measure to breast milk. He believes the milk not only sustains Wesley, but arms him against any number of maladies he may face down the road.

Monday, December 02, 2002

Malcolm Chisholm emerges the victorThe Herald's annual political awards: "The Free Spirit of the Year award went to Labour's Elaine Smith, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, who has shown herself unafraid to champion controversial issues such as legal protection for mothers breastfeeding in public places."