SDCBC Breastfeeding Blog
with Guest Blogger To-wen Tseng
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 young…
Read More
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 More
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 More
Last week, the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine announced its NEW revised position statement: Ankyloglossia in Breastfeeding Dyads**. Recently, there has been increased interest in ankyloglossia or tongue-tie demonstrated by a substantial increase in the number of publications. This parallels a huge increase in the diagnosis and treatment of tongue-tie around the world. Despite this reality, there…
Read More
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 More
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 More
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 More
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 More
The season of Thanksgiving is upon us. I am especially in the mood of gratitude these days because my youngest child turned three years old in late October and weaned himself in early November. With that being said, I have completed my breastfeeding mission—a mission that I once considered impossible! I credit my success to…
Read More
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
To-wen Tseng
To-wen is a Chinese American journalist, author, and breastfeeding activist. For years To-wen has advocated for family-friendly policy and gender equity at the workplace, blogging about breastfeeding as a human right, and speaking out about breastfeeding barriers in Asian-American communities and beyond. She co-founded the Asian American Breastfeeding Taskforce in 2017.
To-wen received the 2018 HealthConnect One Foundation's Birth Equity Leader Academy Community Project Award, and in 2019, she was recognized by US Breastfeeding Committee as the Emerging Leader of the year. This year, an Asian breastfeeding photovoice project she led won 2020 California Breastfeeding Coalition's Golden Nugget Award for "excellence in reducing a key barrier to breastfeeding the social norm."