The Farmer's Market and MORE Breast Cancer Awareness Advocacy

I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who helped out with the Farmer's Market today.  We sold a few items, gave away a few bags to pregnant women (or people who knew them) and helped to spread awareness of our cause in Central Florida.... plus I got to spend a few hours outside during an absolutely gorgeous morning...

Seriously, it was a big success!  :)

I wanted to pop on here and remind people that we have beautiful handmade items for gifts.  Baby showers, Christmas presents, birthday gifts -- we have gorgeous, handmade burp cloths, bibs, blankets and onesies at fabulous prices.  Many of our items match and most can be custom-ordered (if you see a design and would like a matching blanket, bib, etc for a set).  Everything is handmade locally and almost everything is donated.  If you are interested, please let me know.  I can give you a list of places where we'll be or I can meet you somewhere and show you what we have in stock.

Thank you to everyone for your support.  Without our wonderful volunteers, supporters and cheerleaders, we wouldn't be able to accomplish our goals.

So, now I'll leave with another little factoid about breastfeeding...  We already mentioned that multiple studies have shown that breastfeeding reduces the risk of breast cancer in moms... did you know that it also decreases the risk for it in girls who were breastfed as infants?

Women who were breastfed as infants, even if only for a short time, showed an approximate 25% lower risk of developing premenopausal or postmenopausal breast cancer, compared to women who were bottle-fed as an infant.
Source:  Freudenheim, J. "Exposure to breast milk in infancy and the risk of breast cancer."  Epidemiology 1994 5:324-331

Some other food for thought as this is Breast Cancer Awareness Month...  Help Prevent Breast Cancer -- BREASTFEED!

A study by Yale University researchers showed that women who breastfed for two years or longer reduced their risk of breast cancer by 50 percent.

Among both premenopausal and postmenopausal women, risk of breast cancer decrease with increasing duration of lifetime lactation experience although the effect was consistently stronger for premenopausal women.
Source:  McTieman, A., "Evidence of Protective Effect of Lactation on Risk of Breast Cancer in Young Women."  American Journal of Epidemiology, 1986

After controlling for age at first full term pregnancy and other potentially compounding factors, parity and duration of breast feeding also had a strong influence on the risk of breast cancer. Compared with parous women who never breast fed, women who had breast fed for 25 months or more had a lower relative risk.
Source:  Layde, P.M., "The Independent Associations of Parity Age at First full Term Pregnancy, and Duration of Breast Feeding with the Risk of Breast Cancer."  Journal of Clinical Epidemiol, 1989.

If women who do not breastfeed or who breastfed for less than 3 months were to do so for 4 to 12 months, breast cancer among parous premenopausal women could be reduce by 11%; if all women with children lactated for 24 months or longer, the incidence might be reduced by nearly 25%.
Source:  Newcomb,P. etal. "Lactation and reduced risk of premenopausal breast cancer."  N Engl J Med 1994; 330(2):81-87.

An increasing duration of lactation was associated with a statistically significant trend toward a reduced risk of breast cancer.
Sources:  Newcomb, P.A. et al. 1994 Lactation and a reduced risk of premenopausal breast cancer.  The New England Journal of Medicine 330(2):81-87. (P Byers T, et al. Lactation and breast cancer: evidence for a negative association in premenopausal women.  American Journal of Epidemiology Vol 121, pp664-74, 1985)

Siskind V, et al. Breast cancer and breastfeeding: results from and Australian case-control study.  American Journal of Epidemiology, Vol 130, pp229-36, 1989

New stuff on Etsy!

Hello everyone!  I just wanted to pop in and let you know that I have two new items up on Etsy...  note:  if you're in the Central Florida area and want one of these, the prices are lower if you buy them directly through me.  I have to increase the prices to cover the Etsy and PayPal fees... The compresses are $6.50 each (2 for $12) and the onesies are $18.

The first is our hot/cold compresses.  Great for all those aches, pains, bumps, bruises, owwies, boo-boos and burns...  especially great for nursing boobies!  Use it hot for relief from the pain of infections or mastitis or to help with let-down or clear clogged ducts... use it cold for engorgement or swelling.  They're all-natural and made with rice, whole flax and lavender buds (for a nice, relaxing smell).  They're 6" square, so they'll be small enough to be useful for years to come (on those little one's aches, pains and boo-boos).  Check out our compresses here:  Compress

The second are our Orlando Breastfeeding Bag Custom Onesies.  Hand-appliqued with embroidery -- our logo is cut out of eco-friendly felt and embroidered on to a onesie.  We have multiple sizes (plus tshirts or tank tops for older ones).  These are ridiculously adorable!!!  We can also add on custom lettering on the back (in fabric paint) with short sayings ("breast-fed") or your little one's name.  Check them out!

Custom Onesie


Take care all!  Enjoy!

Garage Sale information!

The time for the garage sale is closing in and we're picking up donations like crazy!  Are you in the Orlando area?  If so, swing on by our Mom/Baby Garage Sale Fundraiser held at Infusion Tea (1600 Edgewater Drive) on September 11th!  From 8 am until 2 pm, we will have a HUGE amount of stuff to sell and all our proceeds will benefit the Orlando Breastfeeding Bag Project.

What kind of stuff will we have?  SO FAR (and we're getting more donations every day), we have:  baby clothing, men's clothing, women's clothing, maternity clothing, child's shoes (including Stride Rites), toys, books, diaper bags, high chairs, pack and plays, cloth diapers...  and that's just the gently used stuff!  We will also have a lot of locally handmade items generously donated by the craft community in Central Florida, including burp cloths, bibs, blankets, bath items, tshirts, nursing necklaces and more.

Oh, and I totally forgot our AWESOME raffles!  Our raffles are going to start on September 11th and the tickets will either be on sale until the end of October OR until we hit double the retail price of the item... buy your tickets early because if we hit double the retail price before the end of the day on September 11th and you waited, you're going to miss out!  So, what kind of stuff are we raffling off?

*A brand new ERGO baby carrier with Heart2Heart insert
*6 SoftBums cloth diapers (with inserts) packaged in sets of two
*Glamourmom Tank
*Milk Nursing Top
*Something from Milkies
*Gift baskets created by local artisans
*Gift certificate to Wee Willie Winks
*Gift Certificate plus diaper cover from EcoDiaperService
*Brand new Moby Wrap

As we're also getting raffle items donated to us on a daily basis, I'm sure we'll be adding to our already hefty list. 

Do you have items you were looking to sell, donate or get rid of?  We'd be happy to pick them up for you -- the only things we're not taking are car seats and breast pumps (due to liability issues)...  We will accept anything else -- especially larger toys like exersaucers or jumpers, infant toys, etc -- just comment here or email us and we will come and pick it up!

Central Florida Birth Network Potluck and our Etsy Shop

Whew -- getting a nonprofit up and running is a crazy experience!  We are definitely moving forward -- gathering a ton of sponsors to fill our bags along with writing up the helpful brochures for new moms.  I just wanted to pop in and let everyone know that our Etsy shop is up-and-running with our first item. 

It is a beautiful blue fleece and white flannel blanket with the symbol for breastfeeding cut out of one corner.  The cut-out design is backed with white fleece.  It is available for a suggest donation of only $25 and we know you'll love it for years to come!  Check out our Etsy store for more details!