Adventures in Blogging, and Breast Health

Midwifery is ancient: Blogging is quite new. We midwives have been doing our work, guiding women to give birth safely, for thousands of years.
Blogging, on the other hand, has just been around a few years. Guess which thing we midwives are good at!.....yeah, hopefully, it is the helping women part. Blogging, not so much! But we're working at it. We launched our blog in late September, and promptly lost several comments that were sent in for posting. They may have been useful info, or some lovely families keeping in touch, but nope-- we lost them. If you have helpful comments, please try again, and this way we will get more practice and learn how to do this new stuff!! We welcome your comments. (If anything involves your personal health care or issues with the practice, however, please contact us directly-- not via blog!) Thanks for hanging with us on this new stuff. So...what's new??

Well, it's Breast Cancer Awareness month, with lots of attention on breast health. Some thoughts to share on that:
First, prevention is still worth a pound of cure. Check out the book by Christine Horner, MD on this topic, "Waking the Warrior Goddess" -- kind of odd title, but good info on diet/nutrition, herbs, supplements, and health habits in general can protect against breast cancer.www.drchristinehorner.com.

We midwives at LCM still firmly support the idea of annual mammograms starting at age 40. There were some new USPS Task Force recommendations that came out in November, 2009 that suggested it may not be "cost effective" for this 40-50 group, but we truly beg to differ. We have too often seen cases of breast cancer diagnosis in women under 50 who really vacillated on the decision, and finally did their first mammograms at their midwife's urging...and lo and behold, had a tumor diagnosed and treated early....all because of that mammogram that they almost didn't get. Excellent info on this topic can be found at www.washingtonradiology.com; here's a snippet from them:

"Significant scientific evidence exists to prove that annual mammography saves lives. Yet in 2009, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force advised against annual mammograms for women in their 40s. These recommendations have been scientifically rejected by every major medical organization with demonstrated expertise in breast cancer care. Even the federal government has barred Medicare and private insurance companies from considering these recommendations when making coverage determinations for mammograms.
Please visit Mammography Saves Lives™ to learn why all women should begin getting annual mammograms at age 40. The September 2010 landmark study published online in Cancer confirms that mammography lowers the breast cancer death rate in women age 40-49 by nearly one-third."

Another item of interest is the annual 2010 Breast Cancer Conference sponsored by Inova, in Fairfax on Oct.26, noon-4pm. Open not only to doctors and nurses but to any health professionals for a small fee, it will give an update of the latest research on detection and treatment of breast cancer. www.inova.org/BC2010cme.

Everyone be well and be thankful....
WD@LCM