Thanksgiving is upon us. This year, I’m grateful for family, friends, my fellow breastfeeding activists, and most of all, San Diego County Breastfeeding Coalition.  I started to blog for SDCBC in November, 2013, when my first child was six months old and when I lost my last job over a breastfeeding discrimination claim. With that being said, this blog post marks my 10-year-anniversary with SDCBC.  And it’s bittersweet for me to write this post because this will be the last post I write for SDCBC blog. When I first got pregnant, I thought I’d “try to breastfeed if I have milk.” B ..read more

Kansas Breastfeeding Coalition designated Wichita State University as a “Breastfeeding Welcome Here” campus back in September. The news caught my attention not because WSU provides private lactation rooms through the campus—lactation facilities on university campuses are not rare. Take our local university, UCSD, for example. UCSD provides fourteen lactation rooms throughout its campus, many of them not only come with basics such as lactation chairs and electronic outlets in compliance with state law, but also equipped with pumps and mini fridges. What caught my attention was that the lactatio ..read more

As parents, we all want to provide the best for our children. And there is rarely a better opportunity for us to nourish our kids than breastfeeding—especially for new parents, breastfeeding is a wonderful opportunity to nourish our babies, both physically and emotionally. Of course, breastfeeding also presents challenges. And that’s what I want to write about today. There are many advantages to breastfeeding. Breast milk is the overall best source of nutrition for infants. Studies have shown positive impacts of breastfeeding on babies’ gastrointestinal and immune systems developments, as well ..read more

News and views on breastfeeding, human milk, and all things lactation related August 2023 News Help Us Spread the Word!! SDCBC is partnering with Global Communities Healthy Start program to expand our free breastfeeding support warmline to multiple languages. We are currently serving clients in English, Spanish, and Tagalog, with more languages being added in the future!  1-800-371-6455 (MILK) Please share the flyer and warmline with your clients and community Download Outreach Materials in English, Spanish and Taglog Here New Breastfeeding Support Group Map Finding a FREE breastfeed ..read more

I was a breastfeeding mom for six years. During the six years, I have been separated from my baby for three months for work reasons, I have flown to four different cities with my pump within six months, I have been sent to the emergency room with mastitis and high fever, my milk supply has gone down dramatically due to workplace pressure, and finally, I lost my job over breastfeeding discrimination claims. Nevertheless, I persisted. I often hear people ask, “Why? Isn’t it hard? Aren’t you stressed?” Of course it’s hard. Of course I’m stressed. I come from a culture where breastfeeding has trad ..read more

News and views on breastfeeding, human milk, and all things lactation related July 2023 News Help Us Spread the Word!! SDCBC is partnering with Global Communities Healthy Start program to expand our free breastfeeding support warmline to multiple languages. We are currently serving clients in English, Spanish, and Tagalog, with more languages being added in the future!  1-800-371-6455 (MILK) Please share the flyer and warmline with your clients and community Download Outreach Materials in English, Spanish and Taglog Here New Breastfeeding Support Group Map Finding a FREE breastfeedin ..read more

Last month, I attended a PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act and Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) celebration event with the White House Gender Policy Council. The victories are very personal to me, and it was my great pleasure to share my story at the event. I have been advocating for the PUMP since 2013, when I was denied the accommodations I needed to pump at my office after my first child was born. It was my hope that after me, no mother had to go through what I went through just to feed their baby. So I joined MomsRising, women and children’s advocacy network based i ..read more

You know that Facebook has this “memories” feature? I have turned it off, because I never like to look back, also because those memories often just embarrass me. For example, recently I accidentally tapped “memories” and saw a post I wrote ten years ago, worrying that I didn’t have enough milk for my then 2-month-old. The reason? Because my baby has been crying for milk every two hours, while my friend’s formula-fed baby only needed to be fed every four hours.   Fast forward 10 years to the present, I know that it’s totally normal for breastfed babies to eat more frequently because breast ..read more

News and views on breastfeeding, human milk, and all things lactation related June 2023 Happy Pride Month USBC LGBTQIA+ Lactation Support Resources Tips for Supporting LGBTQIA+ Families, by the Association of Breastfeeding Mothers  Lactation Options & Strategies for LGBTQIA+ Persons, by Healthy Mom & Baby  Support for Transgender & Non-Binary Parents, by La Leche League International  LGBTQIA+ Resources and PRIDE Month, by the Kansas Breastfeeding Coalition, INC.  Tips for Transgender Breastfeeders and Their Lactation Educators, by the Milk Junkies News Hel ..read more

It’s May. As an immigrant mom from Taiwan, I have a lot to write about in this month: It’s AAPI Heritage month. The second Sunday of this month is Mothers’ Day. And May 20th is National Breastfeeding Day in China. Today, I want to concentrate on breastfeeding “problems.” Earlier this year, I helped to translate the San Diego County Breastfeeding Coalition’s resource guide and the California Work and Family’s paid family leave guide into Mandarin Chinese. Both documents became available to public last month (Hooray!) and I proudly shared both of them on a Chinese-language breastf ..read more