Archive for April, 2010

Breastfeeding in Public – How Do You Feel?

One of the best things that a mother can do for its baby is to breastfeed. Breastfeeding is more than a lifestyle choice – it is an important health choice. But there is one problem, breastfeeding in public.

Most of the women and mothers think that it is embarrassing, uncomfortable and unsafe. This is not a problem at all. Maybe it is a bit awkward because hungry babies are not very patient, and can’t wait for the mother to find just the right place for feeding.

You need to feed your baby when it is hungry, and that could be anytime, anyhow, anywhere. What many people do not know is that breastfeeding in public is legal in every state.

But, under the new health care bill, breastfeeding mothers will have a place in every business that will give them somewhere to nurse their children. Therefore, mothers, you can be pleased to hear that the bill extends a right to breastfeed your baby everywhere!

Breast feeding in many countries is very common, most of them already have such a law, but some don’t.  Breastfeeding is the most natural thing in the world. It can take a while to get comfortable with doing it in public.

The main reason for the discomfort is probably the taboo against revealing one’s breasts around other people. If you feel that others might be uncomfortable with your nursing, there are ways to nurse discreetly.

There are many mommy-friendly options available in public (such as nursing rooms). Some shopping centers and larger stores are starting to offer separate rooms that allow privacy for nursing mothers.

Breastfeeding is simply a local custom that can be done in public and should be accepted by many people. This means you can nurse your baby anywhere that you are allowed to be with your baby.

Many mothers choose to stay home, but this is not an adequate solution. A mother does not need to “hide” or go somewhere more private. You do not need to hide at home because you are breastfeeding.

Many moms are nervous about feeding their babies in public. The first thing they should know is that they are doing what is best for its baby and what is natural! Mothers shouldn’t ever feel intimidated about breastfeeding in public. In fact, they should be very proud!

The benefits of breastfeeding are well-recognized. It is healthy for the baby because it helps prevent diseases, infections and allergies.
Every mother should protect its right and feel free to breastfeed in public, and we should respect them!

Heidi Montag’s New Breasts Look Like They’re Going to Explode!

Here’s how I feel about plastic surgery. If it makes you happy, and you’re prepared for the outcome to be less than perfect, then you go ahead and do it. Don’t go in to it with unrealistic expectations of total and pure perfection, or of this making you happy and fulfilled, because my friends, you are in charge of doing that for yourself.

And no new pair of breasts, no matter how you aquired them whether through breast implant alternatives of through breast implants themselves, will give you the self esteem and true self acceptance that self love will give.

That being said, WTH was Heidi Montag thinking when she upgraded her already large breast implants to a ridiculous size F cup? Have you seen the latest pictures of Heidi in her bikini?  They seriously look PAINFUL to be sitting on you chest.  And also, her waist looks nonexistent next to them, making her look like she’s going to topple over.

After receiving much press over getting several plastic surgery procedures done all within succession of one another, I wonder what Ms. Montag is going to do when she realizes that when you play the dangerous game of changing everything about your appearance, you start to obsess about every little imperfection and your life revolves around that.

I think it’s an existence that may become sad and obsessed for this young woman, who is still so young with so much natural beauty, and a husband who supposedly loved her the way she was. I just wonder what’s in store for people like this, who seem to hate their real selves, and go to such great lengths to dramatically alter their entire appearance.

Not to mention the back pain, ugh!  Those beach balls are sure to cause lots of pain in the coming years, I wouldn’t be surprised if when she gets older and wiser, she gets those babies downsized again…….like Sharon Osbourne recently decided to do with her larger than life breast implants after deciding she was too old to carry around their obtrusive weight.  She’ll even still be a pretty large busted lady after that.

Avoiding the “Boob Crease” Wrinkles

When you start to get past your early thirties, or heck, even once you hit the big 3-0 birthday, you start to notice that those little creases that seems to occur overnight and go away throughout the course of the day start to stick around an awful lot longer than they did before. Instead of that weird crease I used to get on the side of my face from sleeping on my side, for instance, going away within hours of me waking for the day, I noticed that it would instead linger for hours longer.

It’s all because your skin unfortunately loses a lot of it’s ability to just “bounce” or snap back once you have stretched it or creased it or laid it up against something where it had a permanent impression on it.  We all have this happen. That’s because our skin cells become more rigid over time, and instead of being resilient and spring-like, they don’t just snap back into place like they once did. This is the reason for most all wrinkles, fine lines and odd squint lines, mouth lines and forehead expression lines.

The same holds true for those creases that you get between your boobs when you’re a side sleeper at night.  I am one of those people that revolves between sleeping on my side and sleeping on my back. I toss, turn flip and stir pretty much all night long. I wish I could stay on my back all night, because that is the least wrinkle forming sleep habit to have, but unfortunately I’m just not comfy on my back ALL NIGHT LONG.

So here’s my solution to the side sleeping boob wrinkles, and it has worked excellently for me so far. I haven’t even had a hint of a side sleeping boob wrinkle since I started this simple habit and practice actually!

Go to Wal-mart of Target and get yourself a long body pillow and pillow case.  Body pillows are great because they make things more comfy for side sleepers by letting your hug them to your chest and stick them between your legs so that you can even out your spinal alignment and wake up with less aches and pains.  They also have another excellent benefit. They prevent boob creases that occur in the center of your two breasts on your chest area from sleeping at night on your side with your breasts compresed against one another.

How? Well, you have to make sure you smash the pillow right in between your breasts, so that the pillow is essentially separating your breasts from one another. This way, you have a barrier to the wrinkles that occur, and you wake up in the  morning with no boob crease at all!  Nothing to worry about. However, you do want to consider that your face is also suffering from side sleeping as well. A silk pillow case may help with that, but not much.

Demi Admits to Having Something Done : Implants?

In a recent interview, it seems Demi Moore alluded to her obvious bout with breast implants, without specifically saying what “work” she had done, but instead just saying she’d had something done, just not to her face. She must be talking about her implants, which she got quite a while ago, and which were evident when she did the film Striptease.  She had them downsized though as time progressed, and I must say they look a lot better and more fitting of her thin, athletic frame.

Not that Demi Moore hasn’t always had a banging body, let’s face it, the woman has always looked really dynamite, since her days of being married to Bruce Willis, to today with her much younger hubby Ashton Kutcher.

Some have speculated what Demi has done to remain so youthful looking, and there have been rumors of plastic surgery, but who hasn’t had rumors of plastic surgery when they look so awesome and naturally beautiful for their age. Um, it’s called TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF.  She eats really well, works out a lot, and treats her skin like it should be treated I’m sure, with great care.

Moore is probably one of the only serious actresses who has gotten breast implants and gotten away with it without such serious scrutiny as a lot of the younger starlets (and much less talented) ones have. That’s because she’s always maintained a pretty private life and classy composure I’m sure.

She hasn’t asked for any attention, and has even shunned reports that she has had any sort of extensive plastic surgery. Sorry, but I just don’t see it if she has, she just looks like a woman who has taken really good care of herself mentally and physically, and that has translated into a youthful physique for her – good for her!

Hispanic Women Breast Feed More?

Breast feeding has enjoyed quite a nice resurgence over the past decade.  What with all the press about natural this and natural that, and how much we have learned about the tangible benefits that breast feeding can give our youngsters when it comes to everything from immunity to development, it’s no wonder that more and more women are turning to this method of feeding their little ones.

Bottle feeding was still enjoying quite a bit of popularity when I was a child. My sister and I were both bottle fed, and I think we turned out ok, aside from me having asthma, we don’t really have a weak immune system or lesser intelligence, so I think some of the claims may be questionable.  However, I do believe that breast feeding serves as a huge bonding element between mother and infant,and provides a baby with a sense of security like no other, so if I were to ever have children, then I would almost definitely be breast feeding, knowing what I know today.

Apparently Hispanic mothers win the breast feeding frequency contest when it comes to which groups of women tend to go for breast feeding their kids more out of black and white women.  The news for us Americans isn’t so good.

I guess that Hispanic women, the longer they are in the states and further east culture, not only do their eating habits become worse (yikes, what’s that say about us?!), but they are also more likely to adopt using formula to feed their babies and ok with it. In the Hispanic culture though, breast feeding is very wide spread, and accepted as the best method for feeding your baby.

Another benefit to babies that are breast fed, in addition to the idea that breast feeding helps babies build antibodies more quickly and also may help with their development and even their intelligence factors, is that babies who are breast fed are also less likely to become overweight and put on weight as quickly as babies who are bottle fed.

I’m honestly not sure how valid all of this research is, since it was based on phone interviews with women who had recently had babies, but it probably does show the general proclivity of the hispanic culture to breast feed their children.  It’s interesting that Hispanic women actually chose to adopt bottle feeding more readily when they came over here to the US, because I barely know anyone who has not breast fed their bambinos over here, it seems like every new mom I know breast feeds!

Pregnancy and Breast Cancer Survivors

We all know that breast cancer is often fueled by changes in estrogen levels.  We actually have a few different types of estrogen levels, and it hasn’t exactly been determined what is a “safe” level of this female hormone.  However, excessive or highly fluctuating levels of estrogen have been linked to increases in breast cancer incidence.  For this reason, it is thought that many women going through change of life get breast cancer, since they are experiencing unusual and volatile fluctuations in their estrogen and testosterone levels.

We do know that there are a lot of lifestyle factors that can help us as women to avoid the pitfalls of increasing out risk of breast cancer. It has often been questioned if younger women who are diagnosed with breast cancer and have survived it, are safe to get pregnant.  Pregnancy, as you well know, carries with it a huge risk of hormone fluctuation, and certainly carries it’s share of risks for the estrogen hormones to be going up and down and out of control.

Shoot, women can have fluctuating hormones several times of month depending on their cycles, but pregnancy and periods are two of the “events” that can cause the hormones to really skyrocket and cause problems. It’s not just moodiness, it’s a whole host of other chemical reactions within the body that occur when the hormones are out of balance, in both men and women, who both have female and male hormones circulating in their body.

The new studies that address the pregnancy and breast cancer death myth (that you are at higher risk of dying from breast cancer if you survived it and subsequently had children), have found that there is no link between pregnancy and dying from breast cancer.

In fact, even in women who have not had breast cancer, some studies have shown a correlation between pregnancy and breast cancer protection. Of course, this is in a whole different demographic, but still…..

The lesson?  Women who have survived  breast cancer probably should not let this stop them from getting pregnant.  Even though it’s not a 100% conclusion, scientists say it looks like there is no direct correlation.

Sharon Osbourne Downsizing Breast Implants

I have to admit, I love Sharon Osbourne. Some people think she’s a control freak and intercedes in every aspect of her husband Ozzy Osbournes life. I tend to disagree. I think that she’s a great business manager and a strong woman, and I love that she doesn’t censor herself or try to come off as something that she isn’t. She’ll tell  you to f off in a heartbeat if she feels you’re wrong, no matter who you are. And I admire those kind of stones in a woman.

I also admire her amazing good looks for being in her late fifties. Sharon is fifty seven to be exact, and she looks really amazing. Sure, she may have had some upkeep work done on her face, but her surgeon actually did a pretty good job, and her face looks firm and lifted.

Another piece of “work” she got done which she apparently is sick of now is her breast implants. Sharon currently sports a DD cup, thanks to breast implants she’s had now for years. She says she’s too old to carry those big things around any more, and wants to get them downsized. She’ll still have breast implants, but she’s going down two cup sizes so she can be comfortable and not feel like she’s sporting a super sized chest for being in her fifties.

She’s always been open about what work she’s had done, in addition to other things she’s been admirably open about. The brash business manager and celebrity is also a celebrity judge on the incredibly popular hit show the X Factor.

She’s also on a show I like to watch, Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice. Her and Cyndi Lauper make this show worth watching.  Sharon has said she adores her and was visibly disappointed when Cyndi was being undermined or blown off.  Watching the show has made me admire Sharon even more. I might actually be intimidated by her if I met her in real life, and not many celebrities would do that to me (ok, I talk big, I’ve only met a few “celebrities” in my life).

Lots of women decided they’ve had enough of their breast implants when they get older.They become cumbersome and start to look a little ridiculous when you get older, so they do opt to either take them out all together, go about some other breast implant alternative, or get a smaller pair of implants to suit their lifestyle more, happens all the time.

Body Fat and Breast Cancer : A Real Threat?

Some controversial news, or shall I say opinions, recently surfaced this week on recommendations by healthcare panels to prevent breast cancer – even up to one third of the cases of breast cancer here in the US, or perhaps the world. Their recommendation was that women eat less and exercise more.  Because obesity is associated to a higher risk for breast cancer, and exercise has been associated with a lowered risk (perhaps because it helps prevent obesity), they are making these recommendations as a prevention measure.

They have treaded these types of issues lightly in the past, and who can blame them (the medical establishment).  It is easy to come off like they are blaming patients for getting breast cancer because of their lifestyle or because they are overweight.  However, what the point is, is that there is a real correlation between increased estrogen levels and higher body fat. Why?

Because estrogen is actually stored mostly in the fat of the body. The more body fat you have, the more estrogens you have running rampant in your body, and this means the higher your breast cancer risk is typically going to be, since breast cancer is typically associated with estrogen.

There are also strong links to genetic factors as well though, so you could theoretically do everything by the book and still get breast cancer if it’s just a strong genetic predisposition.  However, even with this predisposition, there are still things you can change in your life which help to lower the risk.  One is to exercise more. This helps convert more of your body fat into muscle tissue, which means you are housing less estrogen by allowing it to stay in less fat.

Also, eating less reduces the amount of fat you have on your body, or at least decreases the size of you fat cells, which also gives estrogen less refuge in your body and therefore should theoretically lower your risk of cancer. The researchers who made the recommendations we speak of today actually theorized that we could reduce the world’s cases of breast cancer by up to 30% if all women adhered to this type of lifestyle which minimizes the fat on the body.

That’s pretty impressive.  I know for me, it’s a matter of an overall lifestyle to try to do these things anyways, so it’s something that I will always practice in my life.

How Might the New Healthcare Bill Affect Those with Breast Cancer?

The new healthcare bill, while definitely being a landmark bill that will go down in history, is not short on the angst it is causing in both the medical world and the private sector.  Many people think that the health bill will cause ultimately much higher taxes, and “subsidize” those that don’t make enough to pay for health insurance.  Some people think it’s borderline socialist since it may in some way “force” people who don’t have health care to buy it in some form or another.

While I have not read it, or any rendering of it, I have heard a lot of tales of how this bill will work. Of course, we all know the infamous one, which the democrats vehemently deny. The “Death Panel” where a panel of doctors and insurance specialists decide who lives and who dies, in other words who gets treatment and who doesn’t.

To some degree, this sounds like it was based on a true working part of the bill.  I heard this morning on the radio from a specialist on this type of stuff (reading of political bills), something that made more sense.

He said that the bill does provide provisions for medical staff to take this pot of money that they have, and decide what treatments make the most sense for patients, and how to best go about splitting this money.  Of course, this begs the question, would some patients be left out in the cold then?

Would some patients who were deemed “too far gone” such as a patient with advanced breast cancer, be totally dropped from further care?  I’m not really sure how this works, but to me it does sound like some degree of decisions will be made that can impact people’s lives.

All in all, it might be a good thing for those that could not previously afford insurance. Honestly though, for those of us that already have insurance through our employer or a great, cheap individual plan, it may kind of stink. We will probable end up taking on more taxes to pay for this expensive bill. Also of course, there is the notion that we all will have to pay for insurance in some form now, and a lot of people are opposed to this. I can’t blame them, it feels like it’s being forced down our throats.

And when are we going to figure out how we are going to actually pay for this if we don’t get the direction from the government? One thing is for sure, over the next six months to a year, we will be getting more information and direction on this, and much more discussion will be prompted on this landmark legislation. Several attorneys general in several states have already filed suit against the federal government, claiming that the law is unconstitutional.