To view and print this newsletter in pdf format, click here.

Dia's Diary

The Spanish Are Coming! The Spanish Are Coming!

There are numerous milestones in a company’s history. There have been many for us—our first book, our first national award, our first sale to one company of over 100, then 1,000 books, our first office space, the list goes on.

One thing that had eluded us at Platypus Media was the ability to reach out to the non-English speaking members of the birthing, breastfeeding and parenting community. Therefore, we are tickled pink to announce that we have just produced four of our titles in Spanish!  

These include:  Breastfeeding Facts for Fathers, Breastfeeding Facts for Fathers-Abridged Version, Come Home Soon, Baby Brother! (our coloring book for NICU families), and Breastfeeding: Coping with Crisis (our pamphlet on how to approach breastfeeding when crisis hits).

One of the wonderful things about working in the breastfeeding community is its universality. Wherever there are women, there are moms who can benefit from accurate information and support.

We love the fact that our work crosses borders and speaks to women (and men!) from every culture and geographic region. Our goal has always been to help children feel safe and nurtured and to help parents feel empowered, educated, and strengthened. Because of this, it feels like we are really making progress when we can expand the reach of our publications.

Our goal, after these initial translations, is to provide books in Farsi, Hindi, Chinese, Bengali, Arabic and Hebrew. With your continued help, support and demand, Platypus Media plans to become a global provider of parenting and breastfeeding support and education.

Discussions of breastfeeding versus bottle-feeding usually focus on the baby: What’s best in terms of nutrition? Or an infant’s future mental health? But we’re going to take a different route. Let’s talk about the mother, and more specifically, the changes in her body as it readies itself to nourish a hungry newborn. With her breasts enlarged and hormones flowing, what happens if no newborn appears to suckle? How will her body—and brain—react?

First, a little background. The obvious physical changes in the pregnant human body (including swelling breasts) occur in response to escalating levels of the hormones prolactin, lactogen, estrogen, progesterone, adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and growth hormone. Placental birth serves as a sort of trigger event signaling to the mother’s body that it’s time to begin releasing milk.

The baby’s physical suckling behavior—that is to say, lips tugging on teats—stimulates the first ejections, but eventually milk flow can start up by simply thinking about the baby, smelling it, or hearing it cry. “Involution,” the physiological process by which women’s breasts revert back to those dormant objects that give so much pleasure to adult human males, coincides with slowly weaning the growing infant away from breast milk and onto regular foods.

So what happens when, for whatever reason, mothers do not breastfeed their healthy infants? According to a new theory being proposed by University of Albany evolutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup and his colleagues, the decision to bottle-feed is tantamount, in the mother’s psyche, to mourning the loss of the child.

Full article

Surviving NICU Part 13: “Come Home Soon, Baby Brother” by Debi Iarussi

By Bobbi Hammonds

Evansville Early Childhood Parenting Examiner

There is so little material for parents about NICU when it comes to including their other children in the experience. It is sadly forgotten that bigger siblings are going through much the same trials as parents and completely able to understand the situation with little resources.

There is a marvelous coloring book designed just for older siblings that I believe should be in every hospital to hand out to encourage hope. It is titled, "Come Home Soon, Baby Brother."

This twelve page book contains easy to understand medical verbiage, fun drawings to color, and is written by a Registered Nurse, Debi Iarussi.

Debi Iarussi has had tons of experience in Maternal Child Nursing and Women’s Services and is currently a lactation consultant in Austin, Texas. (Illustrations are by Crystal Nobles, a 16-year-old high school student in San Antonio, Texas.)

With a deep understanding of how older children respond to their babies being in the NICU, she set out to develop a book to make the experience better. With complete success this coloring book includes detailed drawings of a baby in a incubator and adorned with cords. It reminds a child that the NICU is a temporary step in their new baby’s life and educates them on simple ideas like washing hands and breastfeeding.

Truly this sweet and educational coloring book is a great tool that any child could learn from.

What a wonderful gift this coloring book would be for any sibling with a baby in the NICU? I believe this book should be sold in gift shops around the nation and expand to “Come Home Soon, Baby Sister” and “Come Home Soon, Babies.”

Read the article here.

For Parents on NICU, Trauma May Last

Kim Roscoe’s son, Jaxon, was born three months early, weighing two and a half pounds. But for nine days he did exceedingly well in the neonatal intensive care unit, and Ms. Roscoe felt little different from the other new mothers.

Her nightmare started on Day 10.

“I had left him late the night before, in my arms, tiny but perfect,” said Ms. Roscoe, now 30, of Monterey, Calif. But when she returned to the NICU the next day, Jaxon was in respiratory and kidney failure, and his body had swollen beyond recognition.

Full Story

More Than 1M Preemies Die in First Month Annually

(CNN) -- More than 1 million babies born prematurely die each year before they are a month old, the March of Dimes said Sunday in the first comprehensive global report on premature births. The organization suggested the situation could worsen if the rate of premature births increases.

Each year, 12.9 million infants -- or nearly 10 percent of the annual worldwide birth total -- are born before 37 weeks of development in the womb, the organization said.

More than 85 percent of the premature births occur in developing countries in Africa and Asia. "Premature births are an enormous global problem that is exacting a huge toll emotionally, physically and financially on families, medical systems and economies," March of Dimes President Jennifer Howse said in a statement. "In the United States alone, the annual cost of caring for preterm babies and their associated health problems tops $26 billion." 

Read the article here.