Christmas Stockings

There are two standard Christmas posts on this blog.

One, is about drinking alcohol and breastfeeding - for the party season. It can be found here. Some of the links to articles have died, and I will track down fresher links when I've found the time. That may be in time for next Christmas. Cheers!

The other is a narrative vignette written after a mother was asked to stop breastfeeding her baby in Church, at a Christmas service. Doh! Because Mary clearly fed Jesus modified cow's milk from a plastic bottle. Or, perhaps, the Three Wise Men were told to go away until the baby had stopped feeding... that post can be found here.

Otherwise, it's just my usual pleas to think about buying the IBFAN breastfeeding calender for yourself and for others as holiday season gifts.

IBFAN saves babies lives: the most vulnerable and endangered babies on the face of the planet. Baby Milk Action, who produce the calender every year, fights David and Goliath with the Formula Giants, and does so on a tiny budget. They scrape together pennies, and turn them into massive achievements. They need more money - buy their fantastic calender, send it to friends, and help keep babies alive.

And annoy the formula companies at the same time. The gift of giving that just keeps on giving!

You can purchase your calender via Baby Milk Action, or through your IBFAN region. Go now, buy one.

There are also quite a few stocking fillers on offer this season, that you can buy through Baby Milk Action, or other stockists that support and protect breastfeeding. A great dip into for fun one, is Alison Blenkinsop's "Fit To Bust" This is the book to give your disapproving mother-in-law, or to leave in the loo for her, with an earmark on one of Alison's Jam & Jerusalem ditties on Breastfeeding... "Do Your Boobs Hang Low....?" perhaps?

There is the classic Must Have book for all those passionate about protecting babies health worldwide, vital for understanding the huge economic and political pressures on preventing breastfeeding. Gabrielle Palmer's updated version of The Politics of Breastfeeding is available from Baby Milk Action too - this is a gift for yourself, or one to give that friend that Just Doesn't Get It.

The book that gives you the facts and figures you need when dealing with the ludicrous 'women's choice' argument, and the book that never takes its eye off the main issue - the appalling poverty that so many women are forced to endure, and the effect of the poverty on the health and well being of those women and their children.

"Just Call Me Daisy", which I covered when it was an idea for an e-book, is also out now. It's a compilation of stories from mothers, and although I've not yet seen the book version, I found the e-book version honest and open - about the triumphs and the joys found along the way on struggling with a world that is working to make her give up on breastfeeding, not win out. I've a poem in it, I think, but like I said, I've not seen a copy. :-)

There is also the book by Anne Sinnot I mentioned a few months ago, when she was looking mothers who had breastfed their older children. Amazon says it's out of stock, others say it's not published yet. I think it's going to be an interesting read, if you can find it. :-)

EDIT: Apparently 'not currently in stock' in Amazon speak means "We have it but we're sulking as the publisher won't pay us to say we have it in stock." So if you order from Amazon, you'll see the delivery appear as if by magic... ;-)

Have fun! :-)