$25 Gift card to Tiny Prints

Head over to Blacktating Reviews to enter to win a $25 gift card to Tiny Prints!


Never want to miss an update of the Blacktating Blog? Subscribe here.
Twitter me- I'm blacktating

October Carnival of Breastfeeding: What I Wish I'd Known...

How many times have you thought, "Oh, if only I'd known this about breastfeeding, I would have..."? Or, "Why didn't anyone tell me that breastfeeding was like this?" Well, now is your time to share all that you've learned during your adventures in breastfeeding with moms-to-be and commiserate with veteran moms who've been there, too. Join the October Carnival of Breastfeeding and share your wonderful stories with us. As usual, we are looking for posts that are:

- Well-written and grammatically correct
- Thoughtful and directly on point for the carnival topic
- On blogs that pertain to subjects of interest to our readers (breastfeeding, parenting, etc.)

Submissions are due on Monday, October 19th and the Carnival will go live on Monday, October 26th. If your post is selected, you will be asked on the day of the carnival to edit your post to link back to each of the other participants in the carnival. Examples of past carnivals can be found here.

Never want to miss an update of the Blacktating Blog? Subscribe here.
Twitter me- I'm blacktating

Review: Tummy Tankz

I was recently sent a Tummy Tank maternity belly band to review on the blog. No, I don't have anything to tell you guys. I'm not expecting. But that's what makes this company and this product so unique.......

To read my full review of the Tummy Tank, please head over to Blacktating Reviews.

Black Breastfeeding Moms: How You Can Help Save Lives

I am pleased to present this guest post by Tanya Lieberman, IBCLC, of the Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog.

African American breastfeeding moms - we need you in the fight against breast cancer!

You probably know some facts about breast cancer: 1 in 8 women will develop it. Early detection saves lives. Breastfeeding reduces your risk.

But did you know that African American women tend to develop a more aggressive form of breast cancer? And that a higher percentage die from it?

These facts are daunting, but there is a special contribution African American nursing moms can make in the fight against breast cancer.

A study based at the University of Massachusetts is seeking African American nursing moms who have had, or are expecting to have, a breast biopsy for participation in a groundbreaking study. The lead researcher, Dr. Kathleen Arcaro, is examining the breastmilk of nursing mothers to identify molecular biomarkers for the development of breast cancer. Dr. Arcaro needs African American moms to participate so that she can determine if her findings are applicable to all women, and different types of cancer.

The identification of these biomarkers may lead to new breast cancer treatments, and perhaps a test which would use breastmilk to determine breast cancer risk.

If you participate, you would provide a breastmilk sample, which is overnight mailed from your home to the lab, and provide a copy of a biopsy report. You would receive $50 in thanks for your participation.

If you think you may qualify, please contact Dr. Sarah Lenington by email or by phone: (413) 577-1823. If you don't, please spread the word by forwarding this on. If you're a blogger and would like to spread the word, contact Tanya about a guest post. Flyers and brochures are available. For more information, see the study website. Thank you for your help!


Never want to miss an update of the Blacktating Blog? Subscribe here.
Twitter me- I'm blacktating

Boo Nestle!

In case you haven't already heard, I boycott Nestle products. If you're new here or don't know much about the company, you can read this post, as well as check out IBFAN's site or Baby Milk Action.

Every year, Baby Milk Action sponsors a "Nestle Free Week" and this year, Halloween falls within that week (October 26, 2009-November 1, 2009). I was talking to Danielle Friedland on Twitter and she had a great idea to create a special hash tag to promote boycotting Nestle for Halloween and I came up with #BooNestle. This is a great start for those of you who feel trying to boycott Nestle's extensive list of products might be too daunting. Simply don't buy Nestle's candy this Halloween and make a difference.

Nestle makes and/or distributes a ton of candy & chocolate products in the US which includes Aero, Butterfinger, Cailler, Crunch, Kit Kat (my fave...gah!), Orion, Smarties, Wonka, Baby Ruth, Raisinets, SnoCaps and more. If you can't tell if it's Nestle, don't buy it. Here's a list of items that are safe:

• Hershey's Kisses
• Twizzlers
• Jolly Ranchers
• Reese's
• Snickers
• M&Ms
• Mars Bars
• Almond Joy
• Whoppers
• Tootsie Rolls
• Tootsie Pops

You can also RSVP to the boycott on Facebook and show your support that way.


Never want to miss an update of the Blacktating Blog? Subscribe here.
Twitter me- I'm blacktating

#NestleFamily, Bloggers & Race: Why It Matters

If you are on Twitter and following me or any one of the many breastfeeding advocates, you probably noticed us tweeting with the hash tag #nestlefamily. If you’re not up to speed, I’ll try to break it down succinctly. Many large corporations, like General Mills and Hallmark, have begun inviting high-traffic bloggers (often so-called “mommy bloggers”) to their corporate headquarters on all-expense paid trips. In return for food, lodging and airfare, these bloggers give the company their opinions on its products. The company then uses this information for marketing & PR purposes. At the end of the day, the company is trying to make money. Focus groups are nothing new, but with women, particularly mothers, making the majority of the buying decisions for their families and social media becoming a more important, effective (and cheap!) marketing tool, it’s a safe bet that these types of trips will be offered more and more frequently.

Nestle recently planned one of these trips for about 20 bloggers*, a list of whom you can find here. The event is currently taking place in California, but for weeks, attendees have been tweeting with the #nestlefamily hash tag on Twitter. I first got wind of this event when someone I follow on Twitter used the hash tag and I decided to search it and investigate further. I found that a woman who I thought of as a breastfeeding advocate was attending the event. Her name is Jennifer James and she is the woman behind The Black Breastfeeding blog (now defunct), Mom Bloggers Club, and the historical breastfeeding blog on Mothering magazine’s website. When I asked her why she would ever align herself with this company and attend their blogger junket, her response was that she never said she had a problem with Nestle. Maybe so, but I think she should have a problem with Nestle.

Nestle has long been thought of as one of the most corrupt corporations in the world. They are a huge multinational and have their hands in almost every aspect of the food business. They produce and export many of the “ethnic”and international products you probably eat or grew up eating. They own the largest share of the infant f*ormula business. They recently acquired the Gerber brand. They sell bottled water. They make candy. At Thanksgiving, you probably make your pie with their canned pumpkin. On a diet? You’ve probably stocked up on their low-calorie frozen meals. They are blatant WHO Code violators and aggressively market their infant f*ormula in developing nations. They used to send sales reps to developing nations in white uniforms and call them “milk nurses.”

These reps would convince mothers to use f*ormula instead of breastfeed and would provide them with freebies just long enough, until their milk ran out. So now you have a woman who is impoverished with a hungry baby and no breast milk. This led to watering down of f*ormula (which still happens to this day, right here in America). These women often didn’t have access to clean water so they couldn’t sterilize their baby’s bottles or nipples and had to mix the powder with contaminated water.

Besides their unethical formula marketing, they have also been accused of using child slave labor in the Ivory Coast to make their chocolate. In 2000, the BBC produced a documentary on children who were stolen from their families and forced to work on cacao plantations where Nestle buys their cocoa. The children were often starved and beaten, and some claim those who tried to runaway were murdered. Then there’s Nestle’s stake in the water business, where they sell local communities’ water at a huge profit, while people who live in the area end up paying through the nose for their own local water.

There has been a lot of condemnation of Nestle in the blogosphere lately and many people are learning things about Nestle they never knew. Many have decided to boycott the company, which I applaud. The conversation about Nestle has been great, but one thing missing from all of the discussions is the racism implicit in many of Nestle’s business practices.

I’ve been told by mom bloggers that it doesn’t matter if people are dying because of Nestle and their products, because it’s only people in Ethiopia. And those enslaved children making the chocolate Nestle buys? Don’t care about them, because Crunch bars are delicious! Nestle pulls shit in the developing world that they would never dream of doing in Europe or the Americas (unless it’s targeting Hispanic moms: in 2004, they marketed their formula heavily in Los Angeles & Houston, specifically in Spanish-language magazines and radio.) They market their f*rmula as protecting against diarrhea in Africa, when studies show formula-fed children are 25% more likely to die from diarrhea than breastfed infants. They also sell a cereal there as a complementary food for infants that contains honey, when we all know honey should not be given to children under the age of 1. In Laos, they use the same logo on their f*rmula as they do on their coffee creamer. Since there is such a high illiteracy rate in Laos, pediatricians discovered parents were often mixing up the two products when they found babies were suffering from protein malnutrition. You can even see the racism in their subsidiaries, like L’Oreal, which was found guilty of racial discrimination by France’s highest court in June. Do a search in Google for Nestle’s marketing practices and you’ll find again and again how they specifically target poor people of color and that these practices result in sickness and death. I will state it unequivocally: Nestle is a racist company.

It’s easy for Nestle to prey on these black and brown people, people who are impoverished, oppressed and often uneducated. It’s bad enough to aggressively market f*rmula to women who have the resources to make a relatively informed decision and have access to clean water. But what kind of company targets the most vulnerable, the easiest to manipulate because of fear and ignorance?

So what of the women of color who chose to participate in this blogger junket? Although it may not be fair, I’m even more disappointed in them than the rest. With all of Nestle’s infractions in Africa presented to them, they choose instead to believe Nestle’s PR team and tweet about how great it is that Nestle has water wells in Africa and built a whopping THREE homes there for poor people. Well, shit, it’s the least they could do, but it still doesn’t absolve them from all of their piss poor practices around the world. As a Latina, does it not bother you that they created a campaign just for Hispanic women, thrilled because the population boom in your community means big bucks for them? As a black woman, do you really have no regard for women in Africa burying their babies because they can't afford to feed them? That their babies will die and they will still choose to feed the next one Nan because Nestle says it's better? Maybe you don't believe Nestle is racist, but just greedy. But does that make it any better?

*It’s important to note that many more bloggers were invited and turned down the invitation because they didn’t want to be associated with Nestle. I commend those bloggers on taking the time to research the company before accepting a free trip from them and taking their money.

Update: People are questioning the validity of my claim that there were racist remarks on Twitter aimed at the activists trying to educate people about Nestle. Please see this post for coverage of the racist things being said by mom bloggers.

Never want to miss an update of the Blacktating Blog? Subscribe here.
Twitter me- I'm blacktating

5 Biggest Mistakes Working & Pumping Moms Make

Welcome Carnival of Breastfeeding readers! Please be sure to scroll down to the end of this post to read through all of the blog posts on this month's topic, Working & Breastfeeding.


Going back to work after having a baby can be tough. Many of us, even if we love our careers, find it extremely difficult to leave our tiny babies in the care of others for 8 hours per day. For many moms, continuing to breastfeed after returning to work is a way to stay connected to your baby, even when you have to be apart for hours every day. Breastfeeding & working is no easy task, but you'll make it easier on yourself if you avoid the Top 5 Biggest Mistakes Working & Pumping Moms Make (AKA, Mistakes Elita Made Frequently While Working & Breastfeeding).



#1. Wearing a dress to work.
Unless you've invested in a dress made for nursing, you'll find yourself with a conundrum when you have to pump at work in a dress. To pull the dress up, scrunched at your shoulders, or pull it down, exposing your body from the waist up? It's a tough call and one you don't want to have to make. The good thing about this mistake is it's one you only make once. Trust me on this.

#2. Forgetting parts of your pump.
Who knew one teeny tiny piece of rubber could ruin your whole day? Forget a membrane at home and you'll be screwed. I suggest all moms learn the art of hand expressing, but most women do better with a double electric pump. Buy spare parts of your pump in bulk and stash them everywhere: desk drawers, your pump bag, briefcase, and car.

#3. Buying a cheap pump.
Although some women do really well with hand expression and manual pumps, in general it's best to invest in a good double electric. A double electric pump that only costs $50 is probably not going to cut it if you're working out of the home full-time. Scrimp and save, or ask your friends to chip in on the pump as a shower gift. If you're eligible for WIC, contact your local office. Sometimes you can rent a pump through them for free.

#4. Forgetting a bottle top.
Imagine, you've just spent the last 20 minutes pumping and you've got two bottles full of milk. You carefully place them in your bottle stand holder and dip into your pump bag for the bottle caps and realize you only have one. OK, so you can probably store the milk safely in your office's fridge, but how do you get the milk home? Again, keeping extras around of everything will keep you safe. Also stash some breast milk storage bags in your pump bags. You never know when you'll have an especially productive day and make loads of milk.

#5. Suffering in silence.
If your nipples hurt after every pumping session and you're literally sucking the skin off them, don't assume this is par for the course! Pumping ain't a joy ride, but it shouldn't hurt. Oil your pump flanges up with olive oil and be sure you're using the right size. Also, you don't have to pump on high! Try to mimic with the pump the way your baby nurses. A little faster and stronger until your milk lets down, then slower and longer to empty your breasts.

Don't miss the rest of this month's wonderful posts on working & breastfeeding!

My World Edenwild: Breastfeeding mothers need workplace support
Breastfeeding Moms Unite!: Breastfeeding at my family day care
The Milk Mama: A job where everyone breastfeeds
Momnesia the Book: Sorry, facilities guy!
Marshins: Taking your working boobs to work
Strocel: Working and breastfeeding a toddler
The Marketing Mama: Working and pumping
Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog: Breastfeeding & working is possible & you can make it work!
Chronicles of a Nursing Mom: Do you really need a pump?
Vanderbilt Wife: I think this officially makes me a Mommy Blogger
Stork Stories: My breast pump and I didn't get along
babyREADY: What about breastfeeding when I go back to work?
Mum Unplugged: This is a breastfeeding office
Best for Babes: Beating the employment booby trap
Breastfeeding 1-2-3: Tips for Breastfeeding & Working
Breastfeeding Mums: Breastfeeding & Working in the UK



Never want to miss an update of the Blacktating Blog? Subscribe here.
Twitter me- I'm blacktating