Hey hey hey! Hope your week was great! Our week was full of more potty training, unpacking and organizing (in between all the mothering!). And so much baby drooling. Bless this little man. So much drool, not a tooth in sight, and smiles all the day long.
This Five was really fun to put together. It’s a little bit of everything – kind of like those Monster cookies that always look like a dump truck of your pantry staples but taste amazing.
Let’s do it.
1. A $217 billion opportunity.
Yep. $217 billion bucks is up for grabs to whoever is willing to offer/create a specific business platform. The Gates Foundation has been trying to unlock how to help men and women at home. Whether that’s a mama that’s working, not working or someone that just needs some help regardless of the situation.
The foundation found that people want help and they are willing to pay for help. On average, people are willing to pay $20-50 per hour for help.
The site is worth checking out. The site breaks down a few different factors of untapped care and help for familiies. If you like the site, I also suggest checking out Melinda’s book The Power of Lift – the audio version was fantastic.
The Code is short for: International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes.
The whole series is 3 videos over about 5 hours (I listened to it on 1.5 speed).
Here are a few things I learned:
- The formula industry makes $70 billion annually. This seemed astronomical to me! Every year – $70 billion.
- In the COVID pandemic, formula companies capitalized on fear by promoting health claims and misinformation about breastfeeding. Donations of formula during the pandemic were a violation of the Code.
- Most of the companies have a place on their website where consumers can post a picture or example of how the company is not following the Code or their own company policy.
- The 5 largest companies that make up 50% of the products producing commercial milk substitutes don’t follow the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. Nestle has plans to altar its marketing policy starting in 2023. FYSA, three of the five largest companies are below if you’re curious about which companies produce the brands you see on the shelf at your local store.
Marketing is an awfully powerful machine.
3. Have you ever wondered what questions you should ask your provider?
The site has a number of guides to choose from! I found myself reviewing these questions in the office for women that wanted a home birth or a birth in a birth center. A lot of women didn’t know what to ask and were really appreciative of the information.
Here’s a peak at the “What to ask your midwife” guide:
In short, this UK guideline offers a review on when to use certain aspects of ultrasound technology during the first trimester. Helpful for practicing providers with some nice language to use while talking to patients about why they can’t “hear” the heartbeat at the first visit. This would be really helpful for anyone learning how to do first trimester ultrasonography.
5. This article on the Delta variant of COVID by Yale Medicine.
I think it summarized the variant nicely and reviewed the long and short arcs of the variant. If you watch the news every day, this may be old news to you. I try to limit the talking heads these days. Patients, mamas, really everyone, has endless questions about COVID and the variants. It’s nice to know a few facts.
Other goodies…
- A study in the United Kingdom launches to study COVID vaccine dosing in pregnant women….
- A breastfeeding organization to highlight: ROSE (Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere)
- An anxiety resource list from The Blue Dot .
- A website for mental health: mentalhealthfirstaid.org
- This article on practicing self care as a busy parent (I have personally recreated our spaces at home recently to help with the flow of our days – it was so helpful!).
- For anyone doing some quality improvement or research, this link to the ARHQ is a stack of great resources: Will It Work Here? A Decisionmaker’s Guide to Adopting Innovations
- Also, did you see Monday’s post on this new resource: The Melanated Mammary Atlas. The idea here is awesome! It’s an atlas of breast and skin conditions on brown skin. If you’ve been in practice, you know that dermatology
That’s it for the Five!
I have some stocking up to do this weekend (I have a dozen lamps and not a single light bulb in my house), meal prep for the upcoming first week back to work after a summer off (yikes!), and a small hope that my two year old might actually poop in the potty and not in his underwear or on the floor. Again.
Happy weekend wherever you are!
Hugs,
Jamie
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