Breast Milk

For Wang Zan, nine months of pregnancy and a caesarean delivery were difficult enough. The last thing she wanted was a monthlong ordeal that her mother and generations of mothers before her had to endure afterward. According to this tradition, the woman must stay in bed behind closed windows, cover her head, give up bathing, washing her hair and even brushing her teeth.

The aid organization Save the Children released its annual State of the World's Mothers report Tuesday. Once again, conditions for moms in the U.S. trailed that of many other developed nations. The country's position climbed six places to 25 th , sandwiched between Belarus and the Czech Republic.  Save the Children's 2012 rankings compare 165 countries - 122 in the developing world - examining maternal health, education and economic status alongside the health and nutrition of children.

Staying healthy may also mean staying informed. Here are some stories to keep you in-the-know. -- What’s good for employees turns out to be good for the company. The Baltimore Sun’s Picture of Health blog reports on why free flu shots in the workplace matter. -- Just let go — of heavy weights, that is. The Morning Call in Allentown, Penn., offers tips on how to tone up by lifting fewer pounds. Hint: Slow down! -- Doctors could learn something from breast milk — and that’s just what they’re doing.

Is it nutritionally risky to put babies and children on a vegan diet, or is it the best thing for them? "When a mother eats meat, her breast-fed child's brain grows faster and she is able to wean the child at an earlier age, allowing her to have more children faster," according to a new article by Swedish researchers in the journal PLoS One that links eating meat to evolution. The article doesn't speak to whether mothers should still eat meat for their babies' health.

A jury has deadlocked in the case of a Bakersfield woman charged with murdering her infant through drug-laced breast milk. The Kern County Superior Court jury on Monday deadlocked 11-1 in favor of convicting Karen Henderson, 21. But the jury did find Henderson guilty of felony child endangerment. She could receive up to six years in prison when she is sentenced Sept. 6. A court hearing has been scheduled for this morning to determine whether Henderson will be retried on the murder charge.

At just 1 to 2.2 pounds, very low birth weight babies are too tiny to breastfeed. But by pumping and collecting breast milk for tube feedings, mothers can help protect these infants from potentially fatal infections.

The murder case against a Perris woman accused of killing her infant son does not hinge on the most sensational allegation -- that Amy Leanne Prien poisoned him with methamphetamine-tainted breast milk, the Riverside County prosecutor said Thursday. Supervising Deputy Dist. Atty. Allison Nelson alleged that, in addition to being a meth user while breastfeeding her son, Prien neglected the child and stored the drug in plastic baby-bottle liners.

Breast-fed children in the United States are 20% less likely to die during the first year of life than whose who are not nursed, according to a study. Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences said they based their finding on a survey that included nearly 9,000 infant deaths in 48 states.

Riverside County jurors weighing a murder charge against a Perris woman accused of killing her infant son by feeding him drug-tainted breast milk told the judge Wednesday that they were deadlocked. But Superior Court Judge Patrick F. Magers sent them back into deliberations. In 2003, Amy Leanne Prien was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of her 3-month-old son, who authorities say had high levels of methamphetamine in his system when he died in January 2002.

In the age-old debate between nature and nurture, scientists studying breast-feeding and IQ have declared a tie. The international team of psychologists, psychiatrists and geneticists wanted to know whether genes are primarily responsible for determining a person's intellect or if environment plays a dominant role.

The vegan lifestyle isn't mainstream yet, but it's surely on its way thanks to the whole food movement inspired by the likes of "Forks Over Knives" and "Food Inc. " Trendy vegan cookbooks, blogs and personalities continue to multiply as we all get " vegucated ," as do the vegan options served at restaurants. I don't remember the last time I was in a restaurant that didn't serve kale or some sort of braised greens. Then again, this is L.A. But is pushing veganism onto children taking things too far?

Breast-feeding has a long list of potential benefits. Now some researchers say there's evidence of one more  -- protection against sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, a form of unexpected death that kills more than 2,000 infants each year in the U.S.  Such a link had been suspected, based on some studies, but to get a better idea of the true association, an international team of researchers analyzed an array of studies on breast-feeding and...

Pumping breast milk at the office is considerably more time-consuming and inconvenient than feeding an infant formula. So the latest breastfeeding research will come as no surprise to anyone who’s considered either option: Women who take the least amount of maternity leave may be less likely to breastfeed, or at least breastfeed for very long, than women who take longer maternity leaves.  Researchers at the Georgia Department of Community Health...

Breastfeeding is universally recommended as the superior method for feeding infants because it's linked to long-term prevention of various illnesses including asthma, diabetes and obesity. A study released Monday puts more emphasis on breastfeeding by showing it may have a lasting impact on metabolism. French researchers analyzed three years of data following 234 children and how they were fed after birth. One group of children received only breast milk for the first four months of life.

Breast milk may do more than sustain an infant; in the future, it could also be used to help assess breast cancer risk.  At least, that’s what a small study hints. By screening breast milk for cells that can turn into cancer, researchers believe they can develop a way to warn women if they’re at an increased risk of developing breast cancer later in life. Results from the new study were presented Monday at the American Assn. for Cancer Research in Orlando.  Researchers  at the University of Massachusetts Amherst  collected fresh milk samples from about 250 women, one sample from each breast.

What could be healthier for a baby than feeding him nothing but breast milk for the first six months of his life? Not relying exclusively on breast milk for the first six months of life, according to a small group of experts on pediatric health from the United Kingdom. Writing online this week in the British Medical Journal, they question whether it makes sense for parents in developed countries to follow the World Health Organization’s advice to provide six months of exclusive breast feeding.

Breast- feeding mothers who take medications containing codeine should watch their infants for possible signs of morphine overdose, such as becoming overly sleepy, Food and Drug Administration officials warned Friday. A new agency advisory says that a small percentage of mothers metabolize codeine at rapid rates, turning it into morphine and putting their babies at risk for overdose.

Scientists on Tuesday reported that perchlorate, a toxic component of rocket fuel, was contaminating virtually all samples of women's breast milk and its levels were found to be, on average, five times greater than in cow's milk. The contaminant, which originates mostly at defense industry plants, previously had been detected in various food and water supplies around the country.

Breast-feeding infants for at least six months appears to give kids' an advantage in school, according to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics . Many other studies have also found a small effect on school performance from breast-feeding. This study, however, was unique in that boys appeared to benefit the most. The researchers, from the University of Western Australia in Perth, have followed 2,868 children since the early '90s. The study showed that, at age 10, boys who were breast-fed for six months or longer scored higher in math, reading and spelling compared with boys who were breast-fed for less than six months.

Breast-feeding at work should become a lot easier as employers adhere to a provision of the Affordable Care Act of 2010. In a report released Friday, women's health advocates estimate that the provision will increase the breast-feeding rate among U.S. women, a statistic that now ranks well below other developed nations. Under the new law, employers must provide nursing breaks and a private, sanitary place where mothers of children younger than 1 who work as nonexempt employees can express breast milk.