1/ For those contemplating maternal and infant vulnerability... I just got a call from a caseworker regarding a woman in prison, 36 weeks pregnant, 8 weeks left of her sentence, permission to enter the mother and baby program at the gaol has been rejected.
2/ She can express milk for the baby for that month they say and it can be transported to the infant. How likely do you think it is that the infant will be able to be exclusively breastmilk fed over that time and that the infant will be willing to breastfeed on reunification?
3/ To what degree will the woman's capacity to provide good enough care for her infant been undermined by separation and likely(?) lack of breastfeeding?
4/ And, yes this language is important here and there is a vast difference in the impact on a child of a mother being incarcerated versus a father. And desexing language, as per this example from Amnesty in NZ that I had in my #bfconf presentation yesterday, undermines advocacy.
5/ Health profs with relevant expertise in breastfeeding or infant mental health might consider how they can assist in such cases. Here is a paper I wrote about writing court reports in child protection, criminal and family law cases involving bf infants journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
6/ And sharing again, our paper on the importance of sexed language in maternity and the particular significance of the word 'mother' and how language can be used to marginalise mothers. frontiersin.org/articles/10.33…
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1/ Last night Media Watch criticised the ABC for not reporting on the UK Tavistock child gender clinic being shut down because of concerns about children receiving poor quality care that did not appropriately consider their needs wholistically.
2/ I have been looking into the issue of the medical treatment of children and young people with gender dysphoria. I am writing up a case study paper on the experiences of a detransitioned woman who grieved her inability to breastfeed her baby because of the mastectomy she'd had
3/ I am disturbed by the lack of evidence that gender medical treatments are helpful. In my own area of interest the lack of consideration given to breastfeeding, even when discussing mastectomy for very young teens is gob smacking jamanetwork.com/journals/jamap…
One year ago today, WHO published "Clinical Management of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) when COVID-19 Disease is Suspected" When it came to maternal-newborn care WHO was 100% right and so many mothers and infants were protected. Those involved should be congratulated.
Also 1 year today @DrNinaBerry and my @ConversationEDU article on Coronavirus with an infant was published. It has been read ≈400 000x. theconversation.com/coronavirus-wi… We also got it right. Just why so many health authorities did not is beyond me, it was clear from almost the very start
We had been in a global pandemic before where recommendations against breastfeeding resulted in vast numbers of infant deaths and even more serious illness, malnutrition and loss of human potential. And yet some still separated mothers and infants. …reastfeedingjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…