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Some years ago, I was involved in an attempt to stop a group of well-intentioned women from donating formula milk to Laventille, so that “the poor children could have something to eat.”

Nothing I said or did could change their minds and the formula duly arrived in the Laventille Health Centre where it contributed to that year’s outbreak of gastro. A side-effect of this move would have been a decline in the number of children being breastfed, something that is seen, to the delight of those with money invested in formula companies, whenever formula is introduced into a culture as an emergency short-term measure.

Fifty-four years ago, in 1956, Viola Lennon and a group of six other local women started the organization called La Leche League a suburb of Illinois, not far from Aurora. Over the past fifty-four years, Ms. Lennon's idea has become an international source of support for mothers and has initiated and backed numerous movements for breastfeeding rights. Lennon was a mother of ten and grandmother of eighteen.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Jan. 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The global humanitarian organization Save the Children is supporting efforts to promote breastfeeding among new mothers in Haiti to ensure the protection of the youngest and most vulnerable survivors of the devastating January 12 earthquake.

The agency has translated internationally recognized public health messages into Creole, which are currently being broadcast on local radio stations.

Delaying the use of solid and complimentary foods during infancy can protect the newborn against obesity later on in life, a new study finds.

UNICEF, WHO and WFP call for support for appropriate infant and young child feeding in the current emergency, and caution about unnecessary and potentially harmful donations and use of breast-milk substitutes.

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Dr. Arun Gupta, Chairperson of the Global Breastfeeding Initiative for Child Survival (gBICS) sent a letter to the Rector of the University in regard to a research study undertaken in the NTNU by Profs. Carlsen, Jacobsen and Vanky, and the subsequent press release :“Breastfeeding is not as beneficial as once thought”.

Read the letter

NEW YORK, 21 January 2010 - During emergency situations, disease and death rates among under-five children are higher than for any other age group; the younger the infant the higher the risk. Mortality risk is particularly high because of the combined impact of a greatly increased prevalence of communicable diseases and diarrhoea and soaring rates of under-nutrition. Appropriate feeding and care of infants and young children is essential to preventing malnutrition, morbidity and mortality.

Within a week after birth, babies inhale new memories at their mothers’ breasts. Newborns who whiff a specific odor while breast-feeding, even if they smell it for only eight days, prefer that same odor over others a year or more later, reports a team led by physiologist Benoist Schaal of the European Center of Taste Sciences in Dijon, France.

New breastfeeding bags offer an alternative to the formula-laden gift bags handed out at hospitals.

The ability to breastfeed and continue the practice requires dedication, commitment, persistence and support. Mothers often need to overcome many obstacles to successfully breastfeed their babies and maintain their balance of home, family and work commitments.

Companies have fortified their products with synthetic versions of certain fatty acids associated with brain development. But evidence shows it may be making children sick.

An intriguing new theory is being proposed about the effects of bottle feeding on the maternal psyche. It goes like this. University of Albany evolutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup and his colleagues hypothesize that when the act of giving birth is not followed by suckling an infant, a mother's body receives the message that her baby has died. The hormonal and chemical changes that occur in her body as her milk dries up send the message to her brain that her baby has died, triggering a mourning response in the new mother.

La Leche League International and the world lost an amazing woman when Betty Wagner Spandikow, of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, passed away October 26, 2008. Bettty was co-founder of La Leche League International and co-author of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, which has over 2 million copies in print.

The benefits of breastfeeding outweigh the risks of virus transmission from HIV-positive mothers to their children, according to studies conducted in four African nations.

The studies were presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Los Angeles, United States, this week (25–28 February).

Newswise — Nursing mothers worried about passing harmful chemicals to their infants through breast milk should be aware that the air inside their home may pose a greater health risk.

Researchers from Ohio State and Johns Hopkins universities measured the levels of harmful gases called "volatile organic compounds" (VOCs) in human milk and in the air inside the homes of three lactating mothers in inner-city Baltimore.

A nursing infant’s exposure to VOCs from indoor air was 25- to 135-fold higher than what that infant ingested through breast milk. In fact, levels found in milk were far below the U.S. EPA’s maximum contaminant levels for drinking water.