Let’s cut to the chase: the answer is yes and no, depending on your source of information.

Who is saying no? In America, that would be hospitals, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and studies like a recent unpublished one from the University of Texas, presented at a May 2009 conference. The authors claim the risk of neonatal death at home is around 0.1 percent, compared to .06 percent in hospitals.

Now, who is saying yes? Organizations like Citizens for Midwifery, the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives—and a new study from the Netherlands published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaeology,…

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Despite the many benefits of breastfeeding—fewer ear infections, fewer bouts of diarrhea, less risk of asthma, less risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)—fewer mothers are breastfeeding exclusively and/or for longer periods of time. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a record number of US women initiated breastfeeding in 2005 (74 percent), but only 11 percent breastfed exclusively for 6 months.

Factors associated with shorter duration of breastfeeding were the subject of a review article published in the February issue of JOGNN. A variety of physical, social, psychological, and demographic variables were identified. Among the demographic variables…

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All sleep-deprived nursing mothers are well aware of a hormone called oxytocin, even if they don’t know it by name.

It’s released during breastfeeding and it’s the thing that makes you feel extra warm and fuzzy during a nursing session. It also relaxes you, so much so that you might find yourself nodding off while your baby eats (sleep deprivation might also have a little something to do with this).

It turns out that oxytocin might also help prevent child abuse, according to a recent study published in Pediatrics.

The study monitored 7,223 Australian mother-infant pairs over 15 years, and found that breastfeeding may…

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Knowing the many benefits of breastfeeding, health care providers are quick to discourage any obstacles to achieving breastfeeding success. In the late 1980s, pacifiers received a negative nod when the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) listed avoidance of pacifiers as one of the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. Whether pacifiers are truly obstacles or simply innocent bystanders was the subject of a recent review article published in the April 2009 issue of Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

Nina R. O’Connor and colleagues conducted a systematic review to assess the link between pacifier use and breastfeeding. Twenty-nine studies were…

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Few things can make a parent feel as helpless as a baby who is crying for no apparent reason. You’ve fed your baby. You’ve changed his diaper. You’ve held him, walked with him, rocked him. Still, he’s crying. What does he want? What does he want you to do? Why don’t you know? Why won’t he stop crying?

Frustration can build quickly when triggered by a baby’s cries—especially when there seems to be no reason for the crying and nothing you can do to make it stop. Frustration can lead to anger, and anger can lead to shaking. Or worse. That’s…

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I have seen the light, and that light is a golden, drippy jar of brown rice syrup.

Let me back up just a bit.

We all know that everyone would benefit from eating less refined sugar, but for many people, cutting out sugar seems impossible—or at the least, very difficult or unappealing.

And once children get their mitts on a candy bar and get used to that level of sweetness, it’s hard to get them to appreciate, say, an apple (without the caramel dipping sauce some fast-food chains serve with it).

In what will come as no surprise to some parents, new research suggests…

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Vaccines have been the topic of numerous posts here, here, here, and here on baby gooroo. What is in vaccines?  Are vaccines safe?  Do vaccines cause autism? Can I choose an alternative vaccine schedule?

Parents and health professionals can now find the answers to these and other vaccine-related questions in a series of audio interviews titled, “Sound Advice.” Sponsored jointly by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as part of their Childhood Immunization Support Program (CISP), “Sound Advice” is a series of ten interviews featuring pediatricians, infectious disease experts, and parents.

According to a 2006 report from the Centers…

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The United Kingdom’s (UK’s) decision to implement the WHO Child Growth Standards was recently reported here on Baby Gooroo. Now we are pleased to announce that the new growth charts for newborn babies and children up to four years of age are available!

Developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and produced for the UK by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), the new charts reflect how normal (breastfed) babies should grow and replace existing charts that are based on the growth of formula-fed babies.

The new charts will play an important role in establishing breastfeeding as the norm and will be…

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You’re about to meet a young mother who recognized that not having it all at once, didn’t mean not having it all.

If Lori Soper didn’t already have the perfect part-time job, she would be a prime candidate for HomeBy3.com. She left a full-time, high-profile executive director of marketing position with a wireless provider in the Washington, D.C. market about six years ago to move to Winston-Salem and spend more time with her children. “I had been working full-time and my children were in daycare 11 hours a day,” she said.

Soper wanted to put her marketing skills and talents to work,…

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If you are a black baby born in the United States statistics show that you are less likely to be breastfed. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), among U.S. children born in 2005, only 61 percent of black babies were ever breastfed compared to 76 percent of white babies. The difference narrows slightly at 6 months—29 percent of black babies and 43 percent of white babies, and 12 months—13 percent of black babies and 21 percent of white babies, but was still significant enough to prompt the Ohio Breastfeeding Alliance (OBA) to launch a local initiative titled MamaTotoMatema (MTM).

MamaTotoMatema is Swahili for…

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Here it is in a nutshell.

Medela—a Swiss company that has sold breast pumps and accessories in the U.S. for over 25 years—recently started featuring pictures of bottles and nipples (or teats) in their advertisements for their “Breastmilk Bottle” sets.

The International Lactation Consultant Association (ILCA) thought that might violate the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, which was adopted in 1981 by the World Health Assembly, the decision-making entity for the World Health Organization. So, they asked a third party expert (the National Alliance for Breast-Feeding Advocacy ([NABA]) to see if it did. Indeed, it did, said NABA. So, ILCA had…

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I think Mother Nature could benefit from a new Public Relations strategy, because finally the press has picked up on a major research report about an important health benefit for mid-life women who breastfed their children years ago—or the increased risk for women who didn’t breastfeed.

The research report was published in February in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (AJOG), coinciding with American Heart Month. This same research team had already reported in 2005 that for each additional year of breastfeeding a woman’s risk for type 2 diabetes dropped 15%. Then in 2007 the team published their findings on the lower…

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