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Dia’s Diary

This installment of Dia’s Diary features guest writer, Debi Iarussi, author of the NICU coloring book, Come Home Soon, Baby Brother!

Debi Iarussi is a Registered Nurse with extensive experience in Maternal Child Nursing and Women’s Services. She has been an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) since 1995.

Growing up, I knew that I wanted to help people and nursing seemed like a calling.  Through my career, I went into many different types of nursing, yet I kept returning to working with newly delivered babies and moms.  For me, this seemed like an area in the life cycle where I could have a positive affect on the lives of others.  This always fulfilled me tremendously.

 As years passed, I had the opportunity to take a "sabbatical" as a stay-at-home-mom.  After breastfeeding my children, Jennifer and Andrew, lactation took on a whole new meaning when I did it myself.  It was such an amazing process and I naturally began assisting other moms to do the same. 

Later, as a breastfeeding educator and lactation consultant, I felt honored to be invited into that special time and space to be a part of such an intimate and loving exchange.  I have been in a variety of settings doing lactation-consulting work, and the NICU has always had a special place in my heart.

As I spent more time in NICU's helping new moms to breastfeed their babies, I realized that the other children in these families were feeling just as vulnerable, frightened, and confused as the parents, if not more.  Watching them and talking with them inspired me to try to help these children to gain understanding about their suddenly expanding families in the NICU.

It seemed logical that a small, simple coloring book would provide an interactive yet informative media for them to share with their loved ones.  My vision is that every family impacted by the NICU experience will be given the small gift of the coloring book so that they will sit together to color, learn, share, and read about what is happening. It is in that exchange that children will gain understanding and reassurance that their changing family values them as well as the new baby.  The opportunity to fulfill this inspiration and vision brings me great joy, and I do so with gratitude.

Debi Iarussi

”Written in a language that any child can understand, with drawings that accurately depict what happens in the NICU without being threatening. 

Carol L. Wagner, MD
Neonatologist, Professor of Pediatrics
Medical University of South Carolina

Available Now!

Click here to order.

New Podcast

If My Mom Were A Platypus: Mammal Babies and their Mothers has been our signature book since its publication in 2001. 

Dia Michels, author of the book, gives an entertaining talk about lessons from the animal world.  In "If Your Mom Were a Platypus: What We Can Learn by Studying Mammal Lactation," Dia extrapolates lessons of relevance to humans from exploring the world of wild mammals.  Dia's observations are now available for all to hear on a podcast produced by Motherwear.

Motherwear produces the only clothing catalog exclusively for nursing moms.  Serving nursing moms for over 25 years, their commitment is not only quality breastfeeding clothing, but also to helping moms feel empowered about their feeding and parenting  decisions.  Lactation consultant, Tanya Lieberman, runs the Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog.  She recently interviewed Dia on mammalian breastfeeding. 

Listen to the podcast.

Full article

There are some new rules governing what used to be called “mother’s milk,” or “breast milk,” including one about what to call it when it’s no longer in a mother’s breast. A term, then, nomenclatural: “expressed human milk” is milk that has been pressed, squeezed, or sucked out of a woman’s breast by hand or by machine and stored in a bottle or, for freezing, in a plastic bag secured with a twist tie. Matters, regulatory: Can a woman carry containers of her own milk on an airplane? Before the summer of 2007, not more than three ounces, because the Transportation Security Administration classed human milk with shampoo, toothpaste, and Gatorade, until a Minneapolis woman heading home after a business trip was reduced to tears when a security guard at LaGuardia poured a two-day supply of her milk into a garbage bin. Dr. Ruth Lawrence, of the breast-feeding committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics, promptly told the press, “She needs every drop of that precious golden fluid for her baby”; lactivists, who often stage “nurse-ins,” sent petitions; and the T.S.A. eventually reclassified human milk as “liquid medication.”

Can a woman sell her milk on eBay? It has been done, and, so far, with no more consequence than the opprobrium of the blogosphere, at least until the F.D.A. decides to tackle this one. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, does provide a fact sheet on “What to Do If an Infant or Child Is Mistakenly Fed Another Woman’s Expressed Breast Milk,” which can happen at day-care centers where fridges are full of bags of milk, labelled in smudgeable ink. (The C.D.C. advises that a switch “should be treated just as if an accidental exposure to other bodily fluids had occurred.”) During a nine-hour exam, can a woman take a break to express the milk uncomfortably filling her breasts? No, because the Americans with Disabilities Act does not consider lactation to be a disability. Can a human-milk bank pay a woman for her milk? (Milk banks provide hospitals with pasteurized human milk.) No, because doing so would violate the ethical standards of the Human Milk Banking Association of North America. If a nursing woman drinks to excess—some alcohol flows from the bloodstream into the mammary glands—can she be charged with child abuse? Hasn’t happened yet, but there’s been talk. Meanwhile, women who are worried can test a few drops with a product called milkscreen; if the alcohol level is too high, you’re supposed to wait and test again, but the temptation is: pump and dump.

An observation, historical: all this is so new that people are making up the rules as they go along. Before the nineteen-nineties, electric breast pumps, sophisticated pieces of medical equipment, were generally available only in hospitals, where they are used to express milk from women with inverted nipples and from mothers of infants too weak and tiny to suck. Today, breast pumps are such a ubiquitous personal accessory that they’re more like cell phones than like catheters.

 Read full article here.

Hot off The Press! Breastfeeding Facts for Fathers (revised)

“This high-spirited little book will be sure to appeal to dads. The information is accurate and the presentation is a lot of fun! Breastfeeding Facts for Fathers makes my job educating families easier!” Joseph DiSanto, MD Brandywine Pediatrics, Wilmington, DE “Breastfeeding Facts for Fathers is a resource that will help give dads those skills so that they can become connected, heart to heart with their children right from the start. When that happens, dads, moms, and especially children win.” Roland C. Warren, President National Fatherhood Initiative “Becoming a dad is a wonderful journey. It does, however, require learning new skills. Breastfeeding Facts for Fathers is great set of training wheels.  Enjoy the ride!” Gregory Long, New Parent Educator and Full-time Dad

USBC (United States Breastfeeding Committee) has a petition to encourage President  Obama to place a high priority on breastfeeding as an essential public health issue.  To sign the petition, click here.

Best Practices in Maternity Care Not Widely Used in the U.S.

• Let labor begin on its own.
• Walk, move around, and change positions throughout labor.
• Bring a loved one, friend, or doula to support you
• Avoid interventions that are not medically necessary
• Choose the most comfortable position to give birth and follow your body’s urges to push
• Keep your baby with you – it's best for you, your baby and breastfeeding.

Backbone and Bounce: Building Resilience

Feeling close to one dependable adult is at the heart of resilience for children.

In a 2007 survey, parents provided the following reasons why they choose to homeschool:

• Concern about the school environment, including reasons such as safety, drugs or negative peer pressure – 88 percent

• A desire to provide religious or moral instruction – 83 percent

• A dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools – 73 percent

• Nontraditional approach to children's education – or "unschoolers" who consider typical curriculums and standardized testing as counterproductive to quality education – 65 percent

• Other reasons, such as family time, finances, travel and distance – 32 percent

• Child has special needs (other than physical or mental health problems) that schools cannot or will not meet – 21 percent

• Child has a physical or mental health problem – 11 percent

Upcoming Conferences:

Breastfeeding: Our Families,
Our Future
 May 22-24, 2009
Newport Beach, CA

Dia Michels will be participating in this event, presenting a keynote address: If Your Mom Were a Platypus: What We Can Learn by Studying Mammal Lactation.  She will also present the Culture and Politics of Breastfeeding, and Extending Attachment Parenting into the School Years.