Women News, August 18, 2009

Jane: Did you know that under Florida law women can breast feed wherever they need to? The law says: "A mother may breast feed her baby in any location, public or private, where the mother is otherwise authorized to be, irrespective of whether or not the nipple of the mother's breast is covered during or incidental to the breast feeding."

Evidently an employee at Chick-Fil-A in Orlando didn't know about the law and tried to give a towel to a women so she could cover up while breast feeding her child. The mother tried to talk to the manager, the general manager and even the chain's corporate office without satisfaction. So she organized a group of more than 30 breast feeding women to appear last Friday at the Chick-Fil-A restaurant and have a "Nurse In" to  make a point about public breast feeding. The restaurant said it is working to better educate the staff about public breast feeding. The parent company is also considering door stickers to inform guests it is "mom-friendly".

Joan: Here’s a different kind of breastfeeding story: a Spanish-made doll that breastfeeds is stirring up controversy, according to an ABC News report. The Bebe Gloton doll allows children to imitate the act of breastfeeding by using a special halter top, which has two flowers positioned where nipples would be. Mothers and experts are in an uproar over whether it's natural, useful or disgusting. The doll is currently sold only in Spain, but it will be marketed in the United States next year. I think I’ll reserve judgment on that one.

Jane: Many of you know that breast feeding helps infants in many ways, including providing protection against swine flu. But what do you do if you get the swine flu? Should you continue to breast feed? According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the answer is “yes, that is best”, unless you are taking medication that could be passed to the baby.

Joan: And a new report suggests weight lifting can be helpful in alleviating symptoms of lymphedema, a significant problem that frequently follows breast cancer treatment. As many of our listeners know, lymphedema is a condition that may occur in women who have had radiation to the armpit, or who have had lymph nodes removed to check for cancer. It results from a buildup of fluids in the arm and can cause painful and unsightly swelling of the arms and/or hands. According to a resent study, weightlifting appears to help decrease, the problems of lymphedema in breast cancer survivors. This refutes the advice women have gotten for decades that they should baby the arm. The study, funded by the federal government, was led by Kathryn Schmitz, Ph. D., an exercise scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. Results are in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

For years doctors mistakenly told women to baby the affected arm, not to lift heavy objects, things like that. Several years ago Dr. Schmitz challenged that notion with a small study that indicated that weight training did not make lymphedema worse. Her resent study confirmed that result and even suggests that weightlifting can reduce symptoms. Another part of the study is evaluating whether weight training can prevent lymphedema from happening in the first place in breast cancer survivors. Those results are expected soon.

But, don’t rush into weight training, Dr. Schmitz advises — that could trigger problems.  Have a certified fitness professional teach you how to do the exercises properly, start slow, with a program that gradually progresses and be sure to wear a properly fitted compression garment during workouts. Check with your doctor about prescribing it. And check with your health insurance carrier, if you are lucky enough to have one. Sometimes this kind of rehabilitation is covered.

Jane: There has been a lot of misinformation in the media about Health Care. This makes it so difficult for people to understand what is going on, and the media have not been at all helpful. The imbalance in reporting, mostly emphasizing those opposed to reform, has been marked. Media Matters for America,  a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center that is dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media counted guests appearing on Fox News health care reform segments during the two days of August 10 and 11. The disparity was substantial. Fox News hosted 63 opponents and only 10 supporters.

Sarah Palin wrote on Facebook about what she called the terrible secret hiding in health bill, raising the specter of death panels, bureaucrats who would decide who could live and who could die, based on their level of productivity. Where did she come up with that? And then,  media conservatives didn't let the facts get in the way. Glenn Beck and Fox News’ Andrew Napolitano defended Palin's "death panel" statement, and Rush Limbaugh called the euthanasia talk "rubbish" but then proceeded to talk about euthanasia."

Joan: Palin’s statement is really offensive and irresponsible. Living Wills and Medical Powers of Attorney, which is what this is referring to, have been around a long time. I have seen fliers in doctors’ offices, medical clinics and hospitals explaining them. They really are a legal matter, and have long been covered by state laws, but now doctors can be paid for spending time with patients discussing their choices. What puzzles me is the idea that now doctors will get paid for talking with their patients. I hadn’t realized they weren’t paid for talking with patients, but that may explain a lot of the deterioration in doctor-patient relationships. On the plus side for the media, despite all the effort to squelch any kind of public health plan, there was actually a host of accurate coverage concerning health care reform this week. ABC's Kate Snow dismissed the end-of-life controversy as misinformation. Joe Scarborough said that it clearly was not true. The "death panel" assertion was further debunked by CNN's John Roberts, MSNBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman, David Shuster, and Willie Geist, NBC's Anne Thompson, and ABC's chief medical editor, Dr. Tim Johnson. CBS and NBC also ran stories illustrating the urgent need for health care reform, and CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta addressed the right-wing "rationing" canard, explaining how rationing occurs all the time under our current system.

Jane: I am glad that organizations are monitoring the media. We need watchdogs such as Media Matters for America to make sure that the information is accurate and balanced.

See you next week, Joan.

Tonight we welcome back Judy Helgager, Women News feminist film critic to speak about the movie "10 Conditions of Love"