Author Archive
Posted August 3rd, 2011 by Melissa Bartick, MD
On August 1, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced it would adopt the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations to close critical gaps in women’s preventative health care. Just last week, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) gave recommendations to close critical gaps in women’s preventative health, based on strict criteria of need and [...]
Posted April 5th, 2011 by Melissa Bartick, MD
The controversy over the Berjuan nursing doll underscores that Americans still have a long way to go to accept breastfeeding as normal. If little Maggie wants to play with her baby doll, she will want to feed it somehow, won’t she? Traditionally, baby dolls come with little toy baby bottles. But what makes feeding your baby [...]
Posted March 23rd, 2011 by Melissa Bartick, MD
The budget debates currently paralyzing Washington include proposals that significantly cut funding for public health initiatives, all while our nation fights an exploding epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and chronic preventable illness that cost our nation billions of dollars a year in medical costs and lost productivity. The Surgeon General recently identified breastfeeding as one our [...]
Posted February 21st, 2011 by Melissa Bartick, MD and Laurie True
There’s not a lot of love between right and left these days, but one thing politicians of every stripe agree about is breastfeeding, at least when it comes to their own families. Michelle Obama says she breastfed her daughters, bringing her younger one to work at eight months so she could keep nursing. Representative Michele [...]
Posted April 14th, 2010 by Melissa Bartick, MD
Since this month’s publication of my paper “The Burden of Suboptimal Breastfeeding in the United States” in Pediatrics with Arnold Reinhold, I’m often asked by reporters what the US can do better to improve our breastfeeding rates. I’ve also gotten quite a few comments asking if this research just makes moms feel guilty if they [...]
Posted March 1st, 2010 by Melissa Bartick, MD
Women now comprise about half the US workforce, according to a major story in the December 30 issue of the Economist. In other words, half our workforce bears all our children. Anyone who wants a child of one’s own must recognize that somewhere, a woman will bear that child and will likely nurse him. However, [...]
Posted May 27th, 2009 by Melissa Bartick, MD
by Melissa Bartick, MD, MSc AND Marsha Walker, RN Lack of policy and infrastructure to support breastfeeding in the U.S. means that breastfeeding is made unnecessarily difficult. Breastfeeding is an important public health issue, both for women and children. Arguably, breastfeeding is also a reproductive right. Growing evidence shows that longer durations of breastfeeding are [...]
