Posts by To-wen Tseng
Dads, Not Just Moms, Need To Start Shouting For Paid Family Leave
In a 2019 piece for Family Values at Work, my husband shared his thoughts about the need for paid family leave for men. Since then, we’ve seen some changes—the Biden administration’s social spending bill, which includes a provision for four weeks of paid family and medical leave—not exactly robust but better than nothing—passed the house narrowly last November.…
Read MoreA Look Back at SDCBC’s Activism in 2021
What a year! In the face of a pandemic, San Diego County Breastfeeding Coalition continues to protect, promote and support breastfeeding through education, outreach, advocacy, and service in our community. Here is a look back at what the coalition has done in 2021. Continue to put together our signature Breastfeeding Resource Guide for families in both English and…
Read MoreCelebrating Breastfeeding Rights Pioneer, Dr. Nancy Wight MD, IBCLC, FABM, FAAP
I am dedicating this month’s SDCBC blog post to Dr. Nancy Wight, the founding and constant member of the Coalition for the past 27 years. Eight years ago around this time, I sent my first email to SDCBC, asking to become a volunteer with the coalition. I introduced myself as a journalist with 10 years…
Read MoreMoms Need Even More Support to Breastfeed In the Era of COVID-19
Last month, TIME magazine published an article that portrayed breastfeeding in an unflattering way. Featuring a new mother struggling to produce breast milk, the article described breastfeeding as an activity that sacrifices a mother’s well-being and blamed COVID-19 for making new moms who seek immune protection to their babies feel even more pressure to breastfeed. As a…
Read MoreLactation Practice Within Immigrant Communities
I once knew a woman who breastfeed on a refugee boat for 48 hours and saved her two young children’s lives—yes, saved their lives, not kept them alive. It was during the 1949’s Chinese Civil War, and that was a small boat packed with displaced people. Her fellow refugees were afraid that the kids’ crying…
Read MoreNational Breastfeeding Month 2021: Every Step of the Way
“If I could talk to myself eight years agoSeeing what I’ve seen, knowing what I knowI would tell that new motherThere’ll be days aheadWhen breastfeeding doesn’t seem to workI would tell her she can trust herselfCause now I gotta picture of landscape of infant feedingI can see with perfect clarityIt wasn’t impossibleIt was what we…
Read MoreVaccinated Mothers Turning to Breast Milk to Protect Babies
A friend of mine re-latched her two-year-old soon after getting her COVID-19 vaccine back in May, hoping to give the child antibodies via breast milk. Her child was previously weaned at 18 months old. My friend is not alone. It is reported that vaccinated mothers have been turning to breast milk to protect children too…
Read MoreCode Anniversary—How Far We’ve Come?
Last March in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I received a LINE message calling to “stock up on infant formula in case there will be a formula milk shortage.” It was a commercial message from a pharmacy that I shopped at during my short visit to Taiwan back in 2019 and they have collected…
Read MoreWhy it’s Still Important to Promote Breastfeeding in Developed Countries
Whenever I write about “breastfeeding saves lives,” I always get some reader comments like this: “Only babies in underdeveloped countries would die from diseases that could be prevented by breastfeeding. Babies in developed countries would thrive with whatever milk they get.” Sounds about right. Indeed, when a country’s economy takes off and people’s income increases,…
Read MoreBreastfeeding Contributes to the Survival of All
Recently, I was informed by my agent that a book I wrote ten years ago will be reproduced as an e-book and be relaunched. So I did a second proofreading, and recalled that I had written an article covering the 2010 Haiti earthquake: “…One day, a mother brought her baby, who was less than six months old,…
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