To-wen Tseng Blogs
A 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 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,…
Read MoreBreastfeeding: Our Stories
Writing blog posts for my local breastfeeding coalition is all about storytelling for social good. So today I am going to tell another breastfeeding story. It was 1949, in the middle of Chinese civil war. A mother trying to escape from the war-torn China got on a refugee boat in Guangzhou with her 3-year-old and…
Read MoreHow to Promote Breastfeeding in Ethnic Groups? Study Says Prenatal Education Might be the Answer.
When I was pregnant with my first child, during a prenatal interview, my then future pediatrician asked me if I planned to breastfeed. I said, “I will try if I have milk.” He told me, “With proper support, virtually every mother has milk.” It was this statement that motivated me to make a breastfeeding plan.…
Read MoreA Look Back at SDCBC’s Activism in 2020
This year may feel different to many of us, but here at San Diego County Breastfeeding Coalition, we continue to protect, promote and support breastfeeding through education, outreach and advocacy in our community. While we might have to do things a little differently, we are grateful that we are able to carry on with our…
Read MoreAll About Extended Breastfeeding
Extended breastfeeding, which is considered breastfeeding beyond one year in the U.S., has been a popular topic among my mom friends and readers. It seems my mom friends never stopped debating and my mom readers never stopped asking “shall I stop breastfeeding when my child turns one?” “Does extended breastfeeding lead to tooth decay?” “Why…
Read More