Help Us Help Local Military Wives!

If you follow our blog at all, you have probably realized several things about A Nurturing Moment:  we are passionate about helping moms breastfeed; we are deeply concerned about meeting the needs of low-income mothers; and we love and appreciate our military!  It is truly devastating to realize just how many military wives are also very low-income mothers. Their husbands are risking their lives for us, and the least we can do is find a way to give these precious women whatever help and support they need!

The Problem
A couple of weeks ago a young mother called for breastfeeding help. She was experiencing a lot of pain when baby latched on and was about at the end of her rope. Her husband has served in both the Army and the Marines, but she barely had enough money to drive to our office. We were able to provide her a Medela Symphony pump at a reduced rate, and her mother helped pay for the consult. But this is the reason we have a sliding scale for our consults. We desperately want to help every mother who needs it!

The Solution
Just yesterday Intuit announced a contest that we are really excited about! It's the Small Business Big Wishes contest. Beginning on December 3, Intuit will give $5000 grants to one business each day for a total of 15 days. We submitted the following wish:

We want to help the wives of those who serve our country by providing breast pumps and breastfeeding support to military wives.These brave women often survive at or below poverty level. Being alone while her husband is deployed is hard enough, but having a new baby doubles the burden. $5000 would provide postpartum support and breast pump rental to local military spouses at Redstone Arsenal.

How You Can Help
Intuit is looking at the number of votes that each project gets as part of their decision-making process. So we need to get the word out and get as many votes as we can. You can vote one time every day, so please take a few minutes to do the following:

• Go to the contest page and vote.
• Share by clicking the share button - you can share on Facebook, Twitter or via email
• Take just a minute to vote every day from now until we win!!

Thank you so much for coming alongside this project and helping us help our military wives!

Back to the Basics!

If you've been around A Nurturing Moment for a while you know that our passion is moms and babies. Basically, we're a boobies, bums, baby carriers and unique baby stuff store! (Try saying that 5 times fast!) Last year we bought Huffman's Baby Furniture and branched out quite a bit. Some of the branching out was really good, and some wasn't as good. 

Beautiful Rug Market rugs are 75% off!

The bottom line, however, has to be OUR bottom line...what really sells for us! The things that really sell are breastfeeding supplies, cloth diapers, Nosefridas, Baltic Amber, Books, Best Chairs, Melissa and Doug toys, Woombies and Miracle Blankets, Aiden and Anais, and the unique little things that you just can't find anywhere else. So we are downsizing. We're cutting our overhead in half, but we're keeping all the things that you, our loyal customers, love!

Tomorrow is our last full day in Suite B. So we're looking to wheel and deal. We've still got a couple of beds a couple of desks, some bookcases and a couple of dressers that we'd LOVE to sell! We've also got lots of cute nursery rugs, oodles of wall art and tons of bedding. All of it is 75% off! Tomorrow  all maternity and infant clothes are 60% off (not including Brandi's All Stitched Together custom clothing.) Even the nursing gowns are 40% off tomorrow ONLY.

Looking for a picture frame or diaper bag or cute toy? They're all 50% off!

Saturday we'll be open from 10 - 12. Then starting at noon we'll be moving like crazy! Monday we'll open in Suite H (right between Victoria's Cafe and Ruth's Good Nurtrition).

If you want a sneak peak, you can come to our Save and Earn night on Saturday at 7:00!

Does "Breast is Best" Create a Hardship?

Photo of PumpEase courtesy of  http://www.snugabell.com/

I just came across an interesting article posted in the New York Times in which Jane Brody attempts to use a recent serial  interview study from Scotland to prove a point. She says the American Academy of Pediatrics goal that women exclusively breastfeed for about 6 months is unrealistic and imposes undue hardship on mothers. She relies somewhat on her personal experience 43 years ago when she had her twin sons early by C-section and pumped her milk as they were being fed formula in the hospital. Obviously that wasn't a terribly auspicious beginning for Ms. Brody, and she didn't have the advantage of a supportive lactation consultant since the profession didn't exist 43 years ago. Her OB was quite supportive, but her pediatrician was not, and I must say that I really admire her determination to breastfeed her sons despite some incredible obstacles and without a strong support network.

However, the thing that concerns me the most is the perception of a continued lack of support for nursing mothers in the workplace. Federal law mandates not only that breastfeeding mothers be given break time whenever they need to pump, but it also says that employers with 50+ employees are required to provide a place for pumping that is NOT a bathroom. Many employers have made huge strides in accommodating nursing mothers; nevertheless, some companies may still be unaware of the legal requirement to support these employees. It is vitally important that the women who work in these companies make their HR people aware of their responsibility.

A Nurturing Moment actually has a special program in place specifically designed to help employers offer the best support available to mothers. The return on investment is incredible. Cigna conducted a 2 year study of breastfeeding employees and found that their workplace lactation program produced the following results:

• $240 million annual savings in health care expenses
• 62% fewer prescriptions
• 77% reduction in absenteeism

Mutual of Omaha had the following results with their lactation program:

• 83% employee retention after maternity leave (national average is 59%)
• Healthcare claims per breastfed newborn averaged $1269 compared to $3415 for formula-fed infants.

That leads us into a discussion of my second major concern with Ms. Brody's article. She asserts that there is no research to back up the claims of the medical community that breastfed babies are healthier. It looks to me like Mutual of Omaha has done some research that backs that up!(Mutual of Omaha. (2001). Prenatal and lactation education reduces newborn health care costs.Omaha, NE: Mutual of Omaha.) Furthermore, the AAP statement is backed up by significant research. In fact, it contains 151 citations to support it's recommendations. The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine has also responded to the Times article with a statement calling for enhanced support for all nursing mothers. 


This isn't about Mommy Wars or "Milk Wars." It's about a public health initiative. The worst thing that anybody can do is use guilt in an attempt to motivate a woman to nurse. Guilt is a lousy motivational tool. It is even more awful for anyone, breastfeeding advocate or not, to make a mother feel guilty about her feeding choice once that choice has been made. Life is just too short for guilt! 


So what do we need to do? First of all, we need to make sure that all mothers have access to good prenatal education about breastfeeding. They need to know that it may be challenging. They also need to know where to turn if they do have any problems.  Next, we need to realize that, as one mother so aptly put it, "It takes a village to breastfeed a baby." (thanks, Elizabeth!) That village includes health care providers, community support groups, family, friends, and breastfeeding professionals.  Finally, we all need to strive to make the workplace more supportive for nursing moms. Are you in management? Do you own a business? Do you know someone who does? Find out what they're doing to help their nursing mothers. Ask questions before you get pregnant. If your children are older, then see what you can do to smooth the way for younger women. If we all work together, we can help more moms succeed and avoid a lot of unnecessary guilt.

Target Stores Target Nursing Moms...Again!

It looks like big-box retailer Target has once again targeted breastfeeding mothers for harassment. It was just two years ago that a Michigan Target forced a nursing mother to leave the store. They actually called the police on her, saying that what she was doing was illegal! However, following that incident, a Target spokesperson said the company policy was not anti-breastfeeding. Apparently that changed at some point!

Michelle nursing her baby (different day) at Target.

Just two weeks ago Michelle Hickman of Houston, Texas, was accosted by Target personnel as she fed her hungry baby. Here is Michelle's story in her own words:
 I'm not the best public speaker or the most educated or outspoken person in breastfeeding rights but I am a mom of 4 who has been harassed and humiliated by Target for nursing by infant in their store. On November 29th around 7-8pm, I was Christmas shopping with a basket full of items when my infant woke up hungry, so I found a remote area of the store in the ladies clothing department close to the fitting rooms and sat Indian style on the floor next to my basket and a display of jeans and nursed my hungry baby with a blanket completely covering him. Briefly I will say that 2 women employees came and verbally asked me to move. The 2nd one told me that Target employees had been told/trained to interrupt nursing and to redirect mothers to the fitting rooms. Even after I informed the 2nd employee of my legal right to nurse in public she still suggested me moving closer to the jean display, turning to face another direction, and also turn my basket a certain way which would have put me practically underneath the jean display and totally barricaded me in. Employee #2 even said in a hint around but threatening way you can get a ticket and be reported for indecent exposure when nothing was being exposed and there was more boob showing from low cut shirts several shoppers were wearing that night. This does not include the other 3-4 employees besides the 2 verbal ones who were all watching and making a spectacle of my nursing by walking by standing around pretending to do something and giving me mean looks and shaking their heads no back and forth. In a side note not a single non-employee customer ever saw the incident so I'm not sure why the employees were trying to act like I was offending "the public" and that it was their job to step in. 
After I left the store I decided to call the Target corporate office during normal business hours the following day on November 30th,  and speak to a guest relations person to notify them of the situation and to suggest that they educate their employees as to the legal right I have to nurse in public. The phone call however took a turn for the worse. The lady (I wish I would have gotten her name) told me that she and Target were aware of our legal rights as nursing mothers, but that Target has different policies because they are a family friendly public place. I can't think of a more family friendly act than breastfeeding and providing the irrefutably proven healthiest diet to my baby. She continued to inform me repetitively that Target's policies were different than the law and even went as far to say several times that just because it is a woman's right to nurse in public even without a nursing cover like I was using doesn't mean women should walk around and I quote "flaunting it" and was extremely rude. I also talked to the supervisor of this rude lady and that didn't get anywhere either.
It saddens me that mothers are being treated this way as if breastfeeding is vile and offensive. If this would have happened to me with the first child I nursed I would have considered giving up on nursing due to embarrassment and that is what concerns me the most. I know that breastmilk is best and that nursing is hard work and a selfless act that mothers choose to do for their babies, and I would hate for this to happen to someone else causing them to give up on nursing. Please help me support the best nutrition for babies and to make a stand in support of nursing in public so this doesn't happen again.

In this country we have some powerful ways to effect change when it is needed. That's exactly what Michelle and some of her friends are doing. They've organized an international Target Nurse-In  for Wednesday, December 28 at 10:00 am. I would love to see our local moms get involved. We have two Target stores in Huntsville that our moms can target! I know this is the second time in two weeks I've blogged about nursing in public, but no mother should ever feel discriminated against for the way she feeds her baby!

Basics by Bravado...Looks like a Body-Silk knock-off.

Last year Target entered into an exclusive relationship with Bravado Designs (now a subsidiary of Medela). Bravado is manufacturing a less-expensive line of bras and tanks for Target. The way Bravado explained it to us retailers was that this allowed women who can't afford Bravado bras to get a good bra for less money. They said that the tanks aren't the same quality as the tanks we sell, and the knock-off of the Body Silk is just that...a knock-off. Then they added that their hope was to expose women to the Bravado name in hopes that they'd look for the "real thing."     Really??

I'm sure I'm not the only Bravado retailer who was a little miffed that they wouldn't give us access to these new products. I'd love to be able to offer a less expensive Bravado option to our moms! We focus a lot of our energy on helping low-income moms!

I decided to call the Target Corporate Customer Service line (800) 440-0680  this morning.  I explained that as a lactation consultant I do sometimes tell mothers about the Bravado bras at Target, and I was concerned about my clients being made to feel uncomfortable if they needed to nurse. I was put on hold, then the representative came back on the line and said, "Guests who choose to nurse in our stores are welcome to do so without being made to feel uncomfortable." She added that they may nurse anywhere in the store they wish, and if they choose to use a dressing room, they may do so without being made to feel rushed.

So let's see what happens on December 28! Leave a comment telling which Target you'll be nursing at. I would suggest that if Target is rude in any way whatsoever to any nursing mother, we begin a boycott of all breastfeeding-related products. They sell a lot of Medela products in addition to their Bravado line. I really hope that Targets all over the country make nursing mothers feel comfortable. After all, it's their bottom line that's at stake!

Please Nurse in the Ladies' Room!

Photo from ZoloWear ring slings.

Today a mom asked me if businesses could make you go to the restroom to nurse your baby. Apparently a local business has signs up about it's nursing area in the ladies' room. She doesn't follow the suggestion, however, and discreetly nurses wherever she pleases. The truth is that nobody even notices that a mother is breastfeeding if she's wearing a baby sling and being discreet about it.

In my reply to her, I mentioned the Alabama state law which states, "A mother may breastfeed her child in any location, public or private, where the mother is otherwise authorized to be present." It's great that a business actually provides a place for mothers to breastfeed because some new mothers really aren't quite ready to nurse in public yet, so a comfortable lounge area might be just what she needs. However, it is unfortunate that we still have some businesses in the Tennessee Valley that frown on breastfeeding mothers. In the last year I've heard of at least one restaurant that asked a nursing mother to move because she was "bothering another patron." Why couldn't the person who was bothered just move?

So why is it that some people are so bothered by the sight of a breastfeeding mother? Are they just as irritated by the site of a scantily-clad young woman? I wonder what would happen if a mother decided to breastfeed her baby at Hooters??

I do have a couple of theories about why some people get upset, but I'd love to know what you think!

1. Those who didn't breastfeed may feel somewhat threatened by the site of a woman breastfeeding. Perhaps it makes them feel guilty.
2. They don't understand that a baby nursing from his mother's breast is eating in the most natural way possible, and a baby drinking from a bottle is actually eating in a very artificial way. 
3. They believe that a mother feeding her baby should be a private thing. It's okay for them to eat a meal in public, but heaven-forbid a hungry baby do so (unless he's being artificially fed...see #2)
4. They equate breastfeeding with other bodily functions that are best done in private...The only problem is that breastfeeding is filling up a tummy, not emptying it!
5. They think of breasts in purely sexual terms and fail to recognize the true biological function of the human breast.

The fact of the matter is that in many countries around the world, nobody gives a nursing mother a second glance. The culture as a whole recognizes the truth that breastfeeding is the ideal way to feed an infant. Our culture, however, perceives bottle-feeding as the norm; therefore, a mother who deviates from that norm and breastfeeds her baby in the public must be a little off in some way. 

If we ever hope the reach the Healthy People 2020 breastfeeding goals of 81.9% of all mothers initiating breastfeeding and 60.6% or all mothers still breastfeeding at 6 months, we are going to have to see some sweeping cultural  changes. We as a society need to make it comfortable for mothers to nurse wherever they happen to be. If you see the symbol to the left, you can be assured that you have found a business that is breastfeeding-friendly.

Have you had businesses that have made you feel either very comfortable or very uncomfortable about nursing there? I'd love to hear about it!