Another Cohort Baby

This blog has been neglected for far too long. In the spirit of increasing traffic here, I am happy to announce that after 39.5 long weeks Michael Alexander Suker has finally arrived!

"Baby Mikey" arrived on Friday, July 8th at 12:59pm. He is a such a cute guy, we are so excited to finally meet him!

Michael Alexander

7lbs, 8oz

21 inches

HIV media campaign in Kenya

Hello public health friends!

I recently attended a lecture about MTV's efforts to spread information about HIV in Kenya. MTV made a Gossip Girl-like soap opera to spread information about HIV prevention and awareness.

I put the link to the first episode below. I think there are 3 episodes so far. They are available on vimeo for free if you want to watch all of them.

Shuga Episode 1 from mtv staying alive on Vimeo.

Enjoy! I hope everyone is doing well!

- Judy

Congratulations Cohort 7!

The last few weeks (and let's face it, last few hours) have been very exciting for Cohort 7!! We have had a wedding and three babies.

Congratulations to Liz and Joseph!

Congratulations John and Jenny on Baby Abby!

Congratulations Eli and Sarah on Baby Makenzie!

and finally...

Congratulations Brad and MaryAnne on Baby James!

We could not be more excited for all of you guys- way to go Cohort 7, we cant wait to see pictures!

Public Health at it's best...

Hey guys! First off, I miss you all like crazy, I really do! I'm getting much better at my DC tour guide skills, so please plan a visit!

Secondly, I don't know how many of you still check this blog regularly, but I wanted to share a particular post with you from my friend's blog. Her blog is private, but she gave me permission to share this wonderful post.

Free Gift

A couple of weeks ago, I was surprised to receive a valuable offer in the mail.

I was so excited to receive a potential gift in my mailbox that I didn't notice the return address.  

A big thanks goes to the Marlboro company for their thoughtfulness.  They must have heard I was pregnant. 

Len's Devotional

Hello all,

Len gave the devotional last week. Brad and I just watched it. It was incredible. I'm embedding it here so you can watch it too. It doesn't follow the sound exactly, which is a bit annoying, but we tried playing it on different sites, and it didn't make a difference. We love Len!

Breastfeeding friendly?

I know it has been forever since I looked at this blog let alone post on it but it occurred to me that it was way overdue. I recently got a promotion at the hospital with my newly acquired MPH degree. I am now the Nutrition Support Expanded Role RN on the Children's Surgical Unit. Which really means nothing to you, but as part of this position I have been placed on the breast milk task force for the hospital. (MaryAnne and Ashley be proud.) This task force was created due to some problems IHC wide in the handling and storage of breast milk. Due to the illness of some of our babies their moms have to pump their breastmilk. It is then feed to the baby through a tube that goes from their nose to their stomach. So we freeze and store extra milk and even increase the amount of calories in the moms breast milk. So we are basically swimming in breastmilk and not following the rules set up to protect the milk. Breast milk was even fed to the wrong baby in an IHC facility! (Thankfully it was not a Primary Children's.) Anyway I have now been charged to set up a group of nurses who will serve as the Lactation Support team for the surgical unit. They will be in charge of helping and supporting breastfeeding moms evaluating latch scores if the babies are breastfeeding and auditing nurses to make sure they know the proper procedures that come with handling/storing breast milk. Sadly out of 100+ nurses on the surgical unit only 5 have responded that they are willing to complete the training necessary to be part of the Lactation Support group. What happened to breastfeeding friendly nurses? It appears I have my work cut out for me. Wish me luck!

That's Public Health

I was surprised by a blog posting that I read this morning. A college-aged student from BYU was making fun of the government telling Americans to "eat less." The idea was that it's sort of big brother-esque to have the government telling us what to eat now. Little does he know that the government has been releasing dietary guidelines for many years. The funny thing (or not so funny) was that he made a joke about your mom being fat, then said he had no idea that your mom was fat (mine is not, actually), when the likelihood is that most moms are fat, as are most adults in the US (2/3). Sad. So, yeah, I'd say we do need the government telling us what to eat, just as we would want the government to give us direction about responding to any other disaster that is killing 2/3 of the country.

HHS released the newest dietary guidelines at an event at GW yesterday. Here's the link.