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Breastfeeding Isn’t Always Easy: 15 Moms Talk About How They Overcame Serious Nursing Obstacles

I always have huge sympathy for breastfeeding mothers, because while it's so rewarding its also a minefield of obstacles from start to finish. Why? Because the goalposts keep moving as babies change and develop. So just when you've gotten past the initial stages and got into the swing of things, baby goes through a growth spurt or a developmental change and you need a new strategy. The suggestion to get some support in place during pregnancy in this piece caught my attention, it's a great idea. There is very little support for breastfeeding mothers in Ireland unless they seek it out themselves. In hospital it will depend very much on how busy the ward is, and on the value the individual nurses you meet there place on breastfeeding. I was seriously lucky to have an amazing sister who is a midwife and an experienced breast feeding mother. There was no problem which arose that she didn't have an answer to, and there were so many. I'll never forget the turbulence of that time, and I do believe that it would be next to impossible to sustain breast feeding over a lengthy period without excellent support and advice. A friend who has breastfed for 6-12 months at the end of the phone is invaluable, as is your local La Léche league. Don't forget that for supply problems, acupuncture is an excellent treatment. A couple of months state-financed house keeping wouldn't go amiss either, but I think that might be a long way off yet!

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Pulse Diagnosis in Chinese Medicine

People often wonder what exactly is going on when they have their pulse taken during an acupuncture session. The pulse gives a picture of how the organs of the body are functioning and helps the acupuncturist to form a treatment plan tailored to the individual needs of the patient. It's a different process to western pulse taking. Yes, the speed of the pulse is noted, but so too is the way the blood is moving through the artery in six different positions, three on each hand. Each position relates to a different organ. Here is a very nice diagram explaining it all in a visual way. Will you always have your pulse taken during acupuncture? And should you worry if you don't? The answer to both of these questions is no. There are other ways to diagnose, such as channel diagnosis, where the points to be treated can be chosen by finding out usually by palpation where the 'sick' meridians are. This method is commonly used in cases of pain or injury, and works very well. With acupuncture, there are many different treatment options. That's what makes it such a fascinating medicine.

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Animal Research and Acupuncture: Stress Hormone Decrease

It's a strange article this one....I find myself wondering why you would need to get rats involved in acupuncture research. Perhaps because their diaries are less full than human ones? Anyhow, they should have benefitted from this particular experiment, so hopefully they came out smiling. What I did like about it was the emphasis on the use of one powerful acupuncture point. An idea I've come around to this past year is that less is definately more with acupuncture points. Choosing a small number of points, and using them diagonally and uni-laterally puts less demands on the body's energy and targets the most urgent presenting problem. Good news for all the people who fear the needles too!

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Running as Pain Relief

Vigorous exercise harnesses the body's own pain-control mechanisms.

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Confessions of a Cardiologist – Treat the Inflammation not the Cholesterol

Dr. Dwight Lundell,former Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital in Arizona told the world not to take statin drugs. “We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to being wrong. As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.

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