Development of a breastfeeding support program at Naval Hospital Sigonella, Italy.

The Naval Hospital (NH) Sigonella, which contains a level one nursery, cares for prenatal patients in an isolated military community. Many of the traditional support systems available to breastfeeding mothers in the United States, such as Le Leche League, are unavailable in this setting. Some prenatal patients in this setting who have had the desire to breastfeed have failed to do so because they were not offered a structured educational support system that encouraged and monitored their breastfeeding efforts. This prompted the pediatric nurse, functioning as breastfeeding counselor nurse at NH Sigonella, to develop a breastfeeding support program. The goal of the program is to educate new mothers about breastfeeding and to encourage them to initiate and continue breastfeeding for at least 5 to 6 months. These goals are in line with the Healthy People 2000 (1990) objectives, which are to increase to at least 75% the proportion of mothers who breastfeed their babies in the early postpartum period and to at least 50% the proportion of those who continue breastfeeding until their babies are 5 to 6 months old. At delivery, the breastfeeding counselor meets individually with each new mother who expresses the desire to breastfeed. During this visit, she observes and evaluates each mother's breastfeeding technique. Discharge follow-up via telephone is conducted weekly for 4 weeks and at 3 and 6 months postpartum. Data collection after 6 months revealed that 86.7% of all new mothers initiated breastfeeding and 51.4% of those mothers continued breastfeeding for 5 to 6 months. The Breastfeeding Counseling Support Program will enhance NH Sigonella's efforts in continuing to meeting the objectives of Healthy People 2000 and the Breast Feeding Hospital Initiative while providing the benefits of breastfeeding to mother and infant.

Maternal-fetal hemorrhage: its incidence and sensitizing effects.

Although anti-Rh-immune globulin is highly effective in preventing hemolytic diseases of the newborn, there are some failures. The causes for these failures often are unknown and it has been postulated that some of them are caused by the transfer of maternal Rh-positive red cells into the Rh-negative infant at the time of birth. A study of 107 Rh-negative newborn infants born of Rh-positive mothers has demonstrated that maternal-fetal hemorrhage is rare (approximately 2 per cent) and that Rh antibody produced during the first six months in Rh-negative babies is similarly rare. Routine administration of anti-Rh gamma globulin to Rh-negative neonates is not indicated.

[Contamination of milk and milk products with chlorinated hydrocarbons in the Westphalian area. II. Results and discussion]. / Zur Kontamination von Milch und Milcherzeugnissen mit chlorierten Kohlenwasserstoffen im westfälischen Raum. II. Ergebnisse und Diskussion

During the time of August 1972 til end of January 1974 samples of butter from 20 dairies from the westfalian area were investigated with regard to their content of chlorinated hydrocarbons. In all samples of milk and butter could be proved: HCB, alpha-, beta-, and gamma-BHC, Heptachlorepoxid (HE), DDT, DDE, DDD, Dieldrin and PCB's, not however, Aldrin, Heptachlor and o,p'-DDT. With HCB, alpha- and gamma-BHC a dependance on the season was observed with maximum values during the winter months. With DDT, DDE and HE the variations were less. With PCB's dependencies on the season or influences of the location were not be recognised. The structure of farming seems to have a significant influence on the contents of HCB. In the course of butter processing the content on chlorinated hydrocarbons related to milk fat is not changed, metabolization does not play a role, either. With the start of lactation the concentration of chlorinated hydrocarbons especially of PCB's are increased as could be shown with single samples.

[On the contamination of milk and milk products with chlorinated hydrocarbons. I. Methods]. / Zur Kontamination von Milch und Milcherzeugnissen mit chlorierten Kohlenwasserstoffen im westfälischen Raum I. methodik

A method of gaschromatographic determination of chlorinated insecticides in milk and butter in the presence of PCB's is described. The fatty components were extracted from milk after adding sodium oxalate and ethanol with diethyl ether and petrol ether. The clean up of the extracts was carried out according to a modification of the method of Hadorn and Zürcher with propylene carbonate as a selective solvent.