Spreading the truth about breast-feeding (St. Petersburg Times)

BROOKSVILLE - When she left the hospital after giving birth to her first child in 1977, Mary Becker was handed a bottle.

Then the nurse told Becker, who now works for the Hernando County Health Department as a certified lactation consultant, that the new mom should get her breast milk tested before feeding it to her baby because it could cause brain damage.

With that experience in mind, Becker now makes it a daily goal to pass along the right information to her clients at the Health Department. During consultations, she constantly tells mothers, or those about to become mothers, of the importance of feeding their children breast milk, especially for the first year of life. She helps families come up with plans to make sure that happens.



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