This is an article about myself and my younger daughter. Thought you guys might get a kick out of It!!!! The hard copy of the paper had a picture of myself and the baby, which she (and I) thought where pretty cool.
The fight against formula
Latch-On promotes breast-feeding
By Matthew Artz, STAFF WRITERInside Bay Area
UNION CITY — As the Tri-City area celebrated National Breast-Feeding Week Thursday, Caitlyn might as well have been named Little Miss Union City.
At age 21/2, she uses the toilet, twirls a hula hoop and never passes up an opportunity to drink her mommy's milk.
"She just wouldn't take to a bottle," said her mother, Colleen, a participant in Union City's second annual Latch-On.
About 15 mothers breast-fed their babies Thursday outside the Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center to promote breast-feeding as a healthier alternative to baby formula.
"In some places, women do it for five years. We're fighting for just one," said Esther Najarro, breast-feeding coordinator for the Women Infant Children Program.
The federally funded program provides healthy food vouchers, breast-feeding instruction and nutritional advice for 5,425 women in southern Alameda County. The vouchers, which can be for as much as $166 per child a month, ensure that low-income children receive key nutrients from the womb to age 5.
Since its inception more than 20 years ago,the program has been in the trenches of a battle with formula companies concerning the bellies of infants across the country — a fight that breast-feeding advocates say they are starting to win.
Far more women are breast-feeding today than did 20 years ago, said Janet Watson, a lactation nurse at Kaiser hospital in Hayward.
She said drinking breast milk facilitates brain development and immunity in infants, and also helps prevent juvenile diabetes and obesity. For mothers, breast-feeding reduces the risk of breast and ovarian cancer, she added.
That is the message the WIC Program gives to expecting mothers, but they say it isn't always successful.
"The formula companies try to make women think that they are not enough to feed their infants and that formula is the greatest thing," Najarro said.
Angie Ollendorf of Union City said formula samples started arriving in the mail after she subscribed to Parenting Magazine. She ultimately chose to nurse her infant daughter, a decision that was sometimes difficult for her mother, who had opted for formula.
"When I was still learning how to do it, she would just look at me, like, 'I don't know what to do for you.'"
After 21/2 years, Colleen, who probably could teach her own class on breast-feeding, is preparing for retirement.
"(My daughter) is getting a little too heavy to lie on me," she said. "I think three years will be long enough."
Staff writer Matthew Artz
