The Hemp Connection:
lactation consultants

I am very excited to announce the beginning of what will be an ongoing and productive partnership with professional lactation consultants. On April 28, 2009, I will be presenting at a meeting of lactation consultants at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, California.

The presentation will include:
--a basic introduction to polycystic ovary syndrome
--the importance of nutrition for minimizing risks of pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, and premature delivery
--the importance of nutrition for minimizing risks of lactation problems, postpartum depression, and sleep issues in newborn babies.

Lactation consultants are a crucial link in the identification and management of PCOS, and I am thrilled to be able to meet with this group in California to begin networking and learning how we can support each other in our respective work.

I will be posting more information about this presentation on my website as it becomes available: www.afterthediet.com/inCYST.htm.

I am especially grateful to Pat Ross, who has orchestrated this meeting and laid the groundwork for it to happen. Here's to our two heads being a whole lot better than just one…Pat, thank you much, see you in April!

As you have seen me allude to in previous posts, and which you will begin to hear a lot more about as we better network with lactation specialists, inCYST believes strongly in the importance of breastfeeding. Breast milk is where babies get their omega-3's, and a disproportionate percentage of the women we work with, it seems, were either not nursed, nursed for a shorter than ideal timespan, and bottle fed during a time when omega-3's were not to be found in formula.

It gets more complicated with PCOS, because women with PCOS, as much as they may want to nurse their babies, can't do so, because their hormone imbalance makes it impossible.

It is a crucial part of our mission to reinforce that PCOS is not just about infertility, but about many disrupted aspects of reproduction. We want to keep the disease from becoming generational.

So we'd like to encourage you to support recently introduced breastfeeding legislation.

The Breastfeeding Promotion Act (H.R. 2819, S. 1244) includes five provisions:

1. Amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect breastfeeding women from being fired or discriminated against in the workplace.
2. Provides tax incentives for businesses that establish private lactation areas in the workplace, or provide breastfeeding equipment or consultation services to their employees.
3. Provides for a performance standard to ensure breast pumps are safe and effective.
4. Allows breastfeeding equipment and consultation services to be tax deductible for families (amends Internal Revenue Code definition of"medical care").
5. Protects the privacy of breastfeeding mothers by ensuring they have break time and a private place to pump (applies to employers with 50 or more employees, see text of legislation for details).

All you have to do, to be sure your legislators hear your voice, is follow the instructions at this link.