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Maternity Pregnancy & Breastfeeding with HealthShare Insurance

Are you Mom Enough: Time to Speak Out!

Unfortunately, the Time Magazine article picture did not help to promote breastfeeding.  This photo was shot to sell magazines, not to help make breastfeeding the norm.  While I personally nursed my children for up to 18 months, there is no doubt that breastmilk is beneficial for much longer.  The controversy comes in with the child standing and the captioning challening moms to nurse their older child.  As a retired lactation consultant, I always tried to help moms meet their personal goals and encourage them to nurse at each stage of breastfeeding.  Whether it was the first month, three months or hopefully at least a year.  I gave advice on partial weaning when a mom did not want to pump when returning to work and advice on gradual and baby led weaning when asked about weaning.  The caption depicts all who promote breastfeeding as breastfeeding Nazis and not the supporters of mothers and babies who we are.  It makes nursing mothers look radical ...

Breastfeeding Diet: How to Lose Weight While Breastfeeding

      As a retired lactation consultant, mother of 3 and grandmother of one, I get asked this question quite often:  "How do I loose the baby weight?"  More recently I was asked about diet pills, which are unsafe for the nursing mother.  That caused me to take action so I am giving you a guideline below based on two decades of experience and the additional 500 calories per day needed by nursing mothers or 1000 extra calories if you are nursing twins.  As with any diet, consult your doctor before beginning this and do no begin until the baby is at least 3 months old.       Losing weight is not necessarily how much you eat, but what combination of foods you eat in order to jump start your metabolism.   Start by measuring yourself and not just weighing yourself because you begin to lose inches faster than pounds so it is encouraging to see the smaller waistline, etc.   An inexpensive food scale and ...