Natural Pregnancy Project

Not long ago Selma Hayek went to Africa with the program Nightline.  She was there to get some publicity for her ongoing work to decrease the level of tetanus in that country.

Selma is a still breastfeeding mom and the topic of breastfeeding came up with some doctors in a local village health center.  The world health organization would like mothers to breastfeed their babies for the first 2 years. However, in Africa ~ where food is scarce and you would think mothers would breastfeed because it’s food they available most mothers quit breastfeeding after only a few months.

There is a taboo in the culture. It is believed to be wrong to have sex with a breastfeeding mother. So new mothers are pressured by their husbands to quit breastfeeding early so they can resume their sexual relationship.

While Selma was there, a baby became hungry and there was no food for it to eat, and its mother was not longer nursing it, so she did. She very casually pulled the baby to her breast and it began to nurse promptly and strongly.

You could see the satisfaction, both on the face of the baby as well as on Selma’s.

When the incident was over there were a few different feelings Selma talked about having. She mentioned feeling a little guilty for giving her baby’s milk away to a strange baby ~ which I imagine is not a very odd thing to feel. However, she will make as much milk as her baby needs, and I bet she could have fed quite a few more of those African babies as well.

The other thing she talked about was pride. She told Cynthia McFadden who was the correspondent with her on the trip that her great  grandmother had come across a mother and a screaming newborn in the streets of Mexico. Her grandmother had stopped to see if she could help and the new mother told her that her milk had dried up and she had no way to feed her starving baby.

At that point Selma’s great grandmother did just as Selma had that day and nursed the baby. The woman was so grateful that her baby did not starve. Selma was feeling pretty proud that she had walked in the footsteps of this grandmother who it appeared she greatly admired.

Well I may be a bit late to the party here, as it seems this video went completely viral yesterday and I didn’t hear about it until last night on Nightline ~ but here it is. Selma Hayek breastfeeding an African baby.

All I can say is Amen to Selma. If every person in this world had her generosity of spirit a lot of our problems would be solved.

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If there weren’t already enough reasons to breastfeed your baby here’s yet another.

It is finally coming to the forefront that there is mercury in high fructose corn syrup. If you have recently read the nutrition label on infant formula you will see the majority of formulas contain high fructose corn syrup, or corn syrup of some sort.

Apparently the FDA has known about the mercury in HFCS since 2005, and has not done anything about it, not told the public and not set any guidelines for the use of high fructose corn syrup in infant products or adult products for that matter.

So now in addition to the vaccinations that still contain Thimerisol new parents also have to worry about giving their infants heavy metal poisoning from their infant formula.

I highly suggest you try to limit if not eliminate high fructose corn syrup from your infant and toddler’s diet. This is going to mean checking ALL the labels. You will be stunned the products that contain HFCS. Things you think are healthy often contain HFCS including a number of brands of yogurt, juice, crackers. It’s hard to get around, but worth it.

I’ve had my misgivings about high fructose corn syrup for a while, I’ve tried to seriously limit our household’s consumption, this just makes me a little more vigilant to keep the small amount we’ve been getting out of our house. (It also gives me yet another reason to give up my Diet Dr. Pepper addiction.)

Here’s the original article I read that brought this all to my attention. It has links to industry studies and more on this topic.  This should give you a real understanding of what’s going on, and how you can implement some changes in your home to keep you and your children more safe.

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If you are a baby wearing mama, and you use Motrin, you might want to think twice.  Their newest ad campaign features a video that mocks and condescends to their target audience.

Here’s the condescending, mocking, anti mom and baby video.

I was so furious when I watched it I could barely speak. You would think a company who’s target audience is mothers, and has millions of dollars to spend on market research, and advertising would do a little bit better job than to insult their target market.

Insinuating baby wearing is simply a fashion statement, so you can feel like a “real mom”.

Mocking different styles of baby carriers.

“supposedly it’s a REAL bonding experience” I mean come on! Just do a quick Google search and you can see the benefits of baby wearing real and many.

“moms who wear their babies cry more than other moms”? What’s that about.  Maybe you need a lesson or two from your local NINO leader to learn how to properly wear your baby so it doesn’t cause so much pain. I know wearing my little one was the only thing that calmed her down, and didn’t bother my back at all. In fact, it cured the pain in my head from 24 hour screaming of a high needs infant.

Look like an “official mom” because you wear your baby. Check yourself. It makes you look like a mom who cares about doing the best you can for your baby and youself.

So now wearing a baby makes us look tired and crazy?

These are probably the same people who think formula is better than breast milk.

You can bet your sweet bippy, all motrin products will be leaving our household today ~ Forever.

Fantastic Response to the Video:

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