Thumbs down to the military. OK, I have to say that I am generally a VERY big supporter of our troops. So I guess I was just really disappointed to read how terrible their maternity benefits are. Women have only 6 weeks of maternity until they are back to duty. And within 4 months they can be deployed far away from their infants. Shocking to me. How can these moms breastfeed their infants?

The military relies heavily on women to meet their voluntary quotas. Without this, the “d” word (draft) starts to be whispered - something that I am pretty sure no one wants. What I don’t get is why there can’t be some kind of a compromise that allows women to be with their infants during that critical bonding period while still actively contributing to the military. The military needs to come up with some creative ways to accommodate this situation so that they can continue to encourage women to sign up.

Stress can contribute to cervical cancer. Most sexually active women will get HPV at some time in their lives. And most of them will fight it off without it turning to cancer. Doctors are trying to figure out why that small percentage of others aren’t fighting it off. They have found a link to stress and its impact to the immune system. They are not saying that stress causes cancer, but that immunosuppressed women have a higher risk, and stress is one factor that can play a part. This could also be another good reason to get vaccinated against HPV.

This year’s flu season is a bad one. Doctors are now predicting that the flu vaccine will only work on about 40% of the flu viruses out there (instead of 70-90% in “good” years). So please don’t only rely on that shot to stay healthy. As Mel just posted, be smart about washing your hands, eating well and staying warm. Try to keep the flu away from yourself and your children!

TV Baby News: The View’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck and husband Tim welcomed their second child, a boy, on Friday morning. The couple have a two-year-old daughter, Grace. Ms. Hasselbeck reportedly plans to call her co-hosts this morning to announce the newcomer’s name.

When to TTC? Researchers have published in the journal Decision Analysis a description of a program aimed to help women weigh various factors and come up with the optimal time for them to plan to have their first baby. The program aims to help women sort through education and career considerations, plus age and other concerns. For example, for some women having a baby early on could derail career opportunities, while for others, taking maternity leave early on in the career track has less of a negative impact. One of the researchers offers, “We use decision analysis all the time to guide complex business and policy questions and decisions, so why not use the structured approach to improve our understanding for making important personal decisions?”

Congenital Heart Disease and Brain Development: Researchers at University of California, San Francisco, found through a study that the brains of babies born with congenital heart disease resemble those of premature babies. They propose that abnormal fetal circulation may be impacting the brain development of these babies. “Traditionally, the focus has always been on the surgery. It would be great to be able to say that you do the surgery and fix their hearts and their blood oxygen and then brain development catches up. We need to look more broadly at what occurs before surgery. For example, there has been interest in doing heart repairs earlier, even in utero,” [Dr. Patrick] McQuillen said. “Our data has implications for the timing of surgery.”

Moms, I don’t have to tell you how exhausting parenting can be! There are theories and tips and recommendations for how to get your child to sleep, what activities she should attend at each age, and what his formerly unstructured free time should really look like. After all, nobody wants their kid to fall behind the norm, right? So we push and chauffeur and sign up and…drive ourselves (and probably the kids!) crazy.

I don’t know many moms these days with kids over the age of two or three who aren’t some form of overscheduled. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to get all of this stuff done - but how much of it is really necessary?

Rosa Brooks reminds us:

That mad swirl of activities? You get burned-out kids incapable of entertaining themselves. That homework you and your first-grader struggle through? It has zero educational benefit. That superhuman effort you make to protect your kids from every conceivable danger? It’s not necessarily helpful if it means they never learn how to evaluate dangers for themselves. Someday, our kids will have to function without us.

She blames the large-scale upswing of working moms for the increase in anxious, activity-filled parenting.

Only when large numbers of mothers did the unthinkable - found paid work - did Americans suddenly “discover” that truly effective “parenting” requires at least one adult to be focused 24/7 on the children and their “needs.” Surprise.

Brooks says that the recent downward trend in moms of kids under the age of six who work is because companies are not as family-friendly as they are profit-driven. How are moms supposed to cope with careers and kids when there’s that corporate/social demand to always give 110% to both?

I do think there is tremendous pressure on parents to do the popular culture-condoned right thing for their kids, but at the same time, surely we can learn from the parenting theories that exist without sacrificing our kids’ free time or our sanity. After all, they learn things from whatever they’re doing - even if that something is finger painting alone or chasing after older siblings playing soccer in the back yard.

Posted by Sunshine.

Breastfeeding Law: MPs in Australia who also happen to be new moms will now be allowed to nurse their babies in the New South Wales’ Parliament. Speaker Richard Torbay announced that he is permanently changing the rules to allow women to breastfeed in the chamber. This is a first for Austrialia’s legislative chambers. In 2003, MP Zali Steggall was kicked out of the Victoria Parliament for attempting to nurse her 11-day-old baby.

PPD Legislation Update: Last week, the Melanie Blocker-Stokes Postpartum Depression Research and Care Act, aimed at providing more funding for the study of postpartum mood disorders, passed in the House of Representatives, 382-3. The bill now moves to the Senate. According to the American Psychiatric Association, postpartum depression affects around one in ten new mothers; postpartum mood disorders with psychotic features affect between one in 500 to 1000 new moms. You can read more about Ms. Blocker-Stokes here.

Sophie Currier, a Harvard student who has been in the news recently for her lawsuit to gain extra break time during her licensing exam in order to breastfeed, has finally won her appeal and will be granted the extra time she says she needs - 60 minutes added onto the standard 45 minute breaks.

As a mom with 27 months of nursing under my belt, I am definitely in the pro-breastfeeding club. But in this case I have to admit I am a bit skeptical. Why? Firstly I am not quite convinced that feeding her child is her main concern here. She already has been granted a special exception to take the test over two nine hour days instead of the normal one, because of her dyslexia and ADHD. How many exceptions should she be granted? (She failed the test the last time she took it about four months ago). Also, there have been other nursing mothers who have taken the test successfully without the extra time that Ms. Currier claims to need - so are they being disadvantaged from this?

This is, after all, a medical exam. Aren’t doctors are supposed to have a strong character to excel in stressful situations, not be constantly looking for excuses? I honestly can’t see why her problem is so big - especially that she felt the need to sue to receive additional special privileges.

As a working mother, I have also been in many situations where it has not been convenient for me to breastfeed. I have been in day-long client meetings where I have had to slip out for 5 minutes to pump briefly, only to express enough milk to release the pressure and provide me some comfort. (And I was forward-thinking enough to freeze extra feedings, so my babies were just fine at those times.)

To me, it comes down to personal choice. There most certainly ARE ways to be creative about breastfeeding, especially for a career-driven mother, which Ms. Currier appears to be. In our cases, it is all about the balance… and yes, there are times when the career might need to take a bit of priority, but with planning there really is no negative impact to mother or child.

While I am 100% for the right for women to breastfeed whenever/wherever they need to, I wonder if a high-profile case such as this could actually result in a set-back for the cause if she is insincere and using this as an excuse to further her own personal agenda. And in this case, I am really not convinced that her situation merited the special arrangements.

Does Ms. Currier deserve the extra time, or is she looking for excuses to give herself the extra edge she needs to pass her exam?  What do you think?

Posted by Meganlux

US News and World Report had a recent article about the “new mommy track”, looking at trends in flextime and other options that make it easier for moms (and dads) to find a work/life balance:

On the company front, 31 percent of organizations allow employees to work from home or off site on a regular basis, and 73 percent allow extended career breaks for family responsibilities, according to a survey by the Families and Work Institute. Best Buy allows some of its corporate employees to set their own hours and work entirely from home. Last year, PricewaterhouseCoopers, a public accounting firm, launched Full Circle, a program for parents that enables them to temporarily stop working for the company but stay in touch through networking and training events. Keeping connected makes it easier for moms to return to work when they’re ready. “The thing we know for sure is that women need choices. Our careers are not as linear as men’s,” says Jennifer Allyn, managing director in the office of diversity.

The company did not start the program out of a spirit of generosity: In 2001, it faced a 24 percent turnover rate. Allyn estimates the cost of losing a client services’ employee, which most are, to be around $80,000. So if Full Circle enables one person to return to the firm, she says, the program has paid for itself. Allyn says the turnover rate has already fallen to 15 percent.

The Pew Research Center conducted a survey that found that a growing number of working mothers say that part-time employment is their ideal work situation, which jives with what our own MomSquawk community said in a recent poll on the issue.

What to do if you don’t work for a company that has a built-in parenting-friendly program? Some women are able to negotiate their own flextime schedules. And enough have dropped out and started their own businesses that the media has seen fit to coin a term to describe these women: “mompreneurs”.

Lori Johnson, 34, is one of those moms. After working more than 80 hours a week as a sales account executive in the semiconductor industry, she quit after having her daughter, Avery, just over two years ago. Not willing to return to such a hectic lifestyle, she decided starting her own business out of her home in Concord, Mass., was a “happy medium.” She now designs and sells car seat covers. The idea for Hot Toddies Baby Gear came to her after she became frustrated when people mistook her daughter for a boy because she could find only blue seat covers.

Look for this to be a continuing trend. A 2006 Lifetime Television poll found that 47% of their respondents in the 18 to 29 age group aspire to manage their own companies.

Posted by MommaSteph.

You can read all of the books, watch the tearjerker baby shows, and still be totally unprepared for motherhood. What do you wish you had known before your first bundle of joy arrived?

Here, Kelly Mills of The Poop shares her top five (her points, my commentary):

1. Breastfeeding is not natural. Breastfeeding does not come easily to everyone - in fact, it can be difficult with a capital D during those first few weeks! It’s also often painful at first (funny how a lot of resources tend to gloss over that part), and as Ms. Mills points out, pumping isn’t exactly a barrel of laughs, either. I wish I had realized that it was ok for things to be so hard at first. It can really throw you off if you’re not anticipating difficulties.

2. Sometimes babies cry for no reason. It’s been one of those days with my two-month-old, so I can definitely relate to this one! It’s hard when that little body seems to be nothing but lungs and there’s nothing wrong that you can see. He shrieked for hours today, and even though I’m a seasoned mom (supposedly - is there really any such thing, though?), it got on my last nerve. I kissed his screaming face, put him down in his crib and summoned my husband to take over. Five minutes later (I spent the time sitting in the bathroom with the fan on so I couldn’t hear him), I was ready to go again. It’s ok to be overwhelmed - as long as you recognize your breaking point and do something constructive. Put your baby in a safe place and take a few moments to calm down. He’ll survive, I promise!

3. Whatever comes out of your baby, it’s probably totally normal. Babies secrete some nasty stuff! From eye goop to spitup to poop and beyond, a first-time parent can easily freak out over some of the regular products of babyhood. It’s gross, but it’s probably not any reason to be alarmed. For peace of mind, Ms. Mills recommends that you have a pediatric nurse on speed dial.

4. If they act like the devil, they are probably going through a developmental stage. Where’d your sweet baby go? She’s probably working on a new skill if she suddenly goes from angel to demon spawn. Wait her out - she may surprise you with what she’s been up to!

5. Babies can be a little boring. They eat, sleep, poop, and cry…doesn’t sound like prime time entertainment, does it? Not that that would factor into your decision to become a parent anyway, but it’s ok if watching your kid sleep isn’t your ultimate favorite thing in the world. It does get better with age! My son is already much more interesting than he was for the first few weeks of his life. Hang in there!

And now, I’d like to add a few “wish I’d known”s of my own:

6. Your relationships with child-free friends will change. Let’s face it: Until you become a parent, there are some things you just can’t fully grasp. And here’s a shocker: Only other parents are honestly interested in some of those kid-related details. You may find it harder to relate to your childless friends - and they to you - but even if you’re in different places in life, you still have the qualities that made you a good friend to them in the first place. Chances are that you’ll figure out how to interact again, and your friendship, though different, will remain a bright spot in your life.

7. The grass is always greener… Whether you are a stay-at-home mom or a working mom, there will be times when you will feel guilty about your choice. You will wonder whether the other path might be better, but in your heart you’ll know if you’ve made the right decision for your family. Try not to second-guess yourself - although if you’re honestly unhappy, re-evaluation might be necessary.

8. There’s no such thing as SuperMom. That woman just doesn’t exist! We all screw up; we all get frustrated. That doesn’t make you a bad mom; it makes you human! That mom down the street who seems to always have it together? Trust me, she doesn’t - you just may not see her uglier moments of motherhood. They exist.

9. When traveling with a baby, have lots of extra everything - including time. Babies just refuse to adhere to anyone’s schedule but their own, and we as parents would be wise to realize that “expecting the unexpected” is a must! You will be far less stressed if you allow some extra time in your trip for whatever may come up. Carry one more spare outfit for baby - and an extra shirt for you! - than you think you’ll need, because trust me - multiple blowouts of the Code Brown kind can and do happen on the road, and everyone’s happier if you’re prepared for the possibility.

10. Nobody can totally prepare you for the frustrations and the joys that come with motherhood. It’s true that people tend to gloss over the rough parts of parenting, but the joys - no anecdote can accurately convey those moments of rapture, when you feel with every fiber of your being that motherhood is right where you belong, that this tiny perfect being is the best thing that ever happened to you…and those moments will come!

Posted by Sunshine.

Trends in Work/Life Balance: A new study out of the University of Cincinnati finds that working mothers are more likely than working dads to take the day off when a child is ill. However, the likelihood of dad calling in to take care of a sick child increases with the length of his employment and, not surprisingly, when he works flextime hours. Women become less likely to be sole providers of care for sick children as their salaries increase.

Kids’ Health Insurance and Politics: The expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which is funded through state and federal money, is set to be a political football. The Senate wants to expand funding for the program by $35 billion over five years; the Congress proposes $50 billion; and the President advocates $5 billion and has threatened to veto legislation that outstrips this amount. At issue is the plan to offer families of four who make over $100,000 per year the option of buying into the program if they can show that they are unable to get or to afford private health insurance. Opponents say the expansion of the program is a step towards socialized medicine and fattens already inefficient government programs; supporters say that in addition to giving health care to the nation’s poor, the plan offers coverage for children who have been failed by the private health insurance industry. Expect to hear more.

Legal Pushback on Baby Video Study: Walt Disney, parent company to Baby Einstein, has issued a demand for a retraction of the press release issued by the University of Washington on its study on the effect “baby videos and DVDs” have on language development. The letter raises doubts about the methodology used in the study. One objection: “The study combines very different content into a single category of ‘Baby Video’, even though the types of videos lumped into this category vary widely. In effect, the study assumes that neither the specific content nor the manner in which it is consumed can influence the nature of the experience. The study does nothing to prove this proposition which is contradicted by other published studies of infant viewing (not even mentioned in the report) which find that the specific nature of content and the way it is consumed are vitally important.”

The Morton the Merrier: British actress Samantha Morton (Sweet & Lowdown, The Minority Report) announced that she is pregnant with her second child. Dad is fiancé Harry Holm. Ms. Morton has a seven-year-old daughter Esme from a previous relationship.

Pregnancy Discrimination News: The city of San Antonio has agreed to settle a Department of Justice lawsuit that alleges that its police department discriminated against a pregnant detective by reassigning her even though her pregnancy did not impact her ability to perform the requirements of her job. “Women must be allowed to perform their jobs without being subjected to unlawful policies or practices, simply because they are pregnant,” says Wan. J. Kim, assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

The Benefits of Preschool: Over at Working Dad, word of a new University of Minnesota study that finds that children who attend top-quality preschools are more likely to graduate from high school and continue to college, to be employed, and to have health insurance, and less likely to wind up in prison or depressed. The study focused on a Chicago public eduction program serving low-income families. Note the researchers, “Because expenditures for the medical care and justice systems comprise roughly 20 percent of the gross domestic product, the potential cost savings to governments and taxpayers of early childhood prevention programs are considerable.”

Ohio Maternity Leave Proposal: The Ohio Civil Rights Commission is proposing legislation that would change that state’s anti-pregnancy discrimination laws to enable all working moms to take twelve weeks’ post-childbirth leave without fear of losing their jobs. While the federal Family and Medical Leave Act requires businesses with at least 50 employees to give leave to new moms if they have worked for the company for at least1,250 hours in the previous twelve months, the Ohio proposal would guarantee leave for women working for companies with at least four employees, regardless of how long they have been employed. The proposal is facing criticism from some who feel the law would hit small businesses too hard.

West Nile Spreading? California ’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency in three California counties that have been hit hardest with West Nile Virus. Kern, Colusa and San Joaquin counties will receive extra funding to combat the mosquito-borne disease.

Happy World Breastfeeding Week!

(Thanks, Alison, for the picture!)