Breast Pump Lending Library Receives Support from MSU Alumni Club of Kalamazoo
Kalamazoo, Mich.- The MSU Extension office in Kalamazoo County congratulates the MSU Alumni Club of Kalamazoo on their recent charity golf outing and conveys our thanks for generously donating some of the proceeds to continue providing support to the Breastfeeding Initiative (BFI) Breast Pump Lending Library.
In 2007, the MSU Alumni Club of Kalamazoo donated enough money to purchase seven hospital grade Medela breast pumps. The proceeds from the 2008 charity golf outing will enable MSU Extension of Kalamazoo to purchase three more hospital grade Medela breast pumps, bringing the total to ten breast pumps available in the Lending Library. These breast pumps are available to WIC and food stamp eligible mothers who live in the Kalamazoo area. We will also be able to purchase breast pump kits for those mothers who can not get the kits on their own.
To participate in this program, mothers sign up with the MSU Extension Mother-to-Mother program where a breastfeeding peer counselor is available to help the mother with breastfeeding coaching and concerns until her infant reaches one year of age. The goal of the lending library is to help a mother continue breastfeeding for as long as possible. By using a breast pump, a mother will be able to return to work and pump to keep up her milk supply. For a mother who doesn’t have access to a pump, her milk supply will diminish and she would no longer be able to continue breastfeeding. The mother can borrow the pump for a month at a time, and can get extensions if needed. In addition to borrowing breast pumps, the breastfeeding peer counselor can also help moms with breast pads, storage bags and general information to help the mom continue to meet her breastfeeding goals.
The World Health Organization (WHO) actually recommends infants to be breastfed until the age of two. Infants must receive breast milk or formula for the first year of life. Most people don’t realize how important it is to breastfeed. Babies who are formula fed run a greater risk of ear infections, diarrhea, constipation, necrotizing enterocolitis, upper, lower, and urinary tract infections, bacterial meningitis, allergies, eczema, asthma, lymphoma, leukemia, crohn’s disease, diabetes, celiac disease, obesity, sudden infant death syndrome, and a lower I.Q. A mother who only formula feeds her baby has a greater risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer; she also misses the benefit of not being able to burn five hundred calories a day just by breastfeeding her infant.
MSU Extension of Kalamazoo again thanks the MSU Alumni Club of Kalamazoo for their contribution to the Breast Pump Lending Library and their acknowledgement of how important making breast pumps available to help the low income mothers in Kalamazoo to be able to continue breastfeeding. The MSU Alumni Club of Kalamazoo is helping make Kalamazoo a healthier, happier place for our moms and our babies.
For more information about the Breastfeeding Initiative (BFI) program at MSU Extension call 384-8064 or e-mail to huleta@msu.edu or visit our web site at www.kalcounty.com/msue.
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