Breast Milk Courier Helps Indonesian Mums Balance Home and Work Lives

Breast Milk Courier Helps Indonesian Mums Balance Home and Work Lives - Febby Kemala Dewi returned to work at a Jakarta accounting firm after three months of maternity leave but struggled, like many new mums, to balance her home and work lives — especially keeping her infant daughter fed.

Unwilling to stop breastfeeding, unable to pump enough for a whole day in the morning before work and leery of giving her baby anything but the freshest milk, she finally turned to a unique Jakarta service — a breast milk motorbike courier.

“I have to work, but at the same time I can still feed my baby,” said Dewi, the wall by her desk plastered with pictures of her smiling daughter, eight-month-old Ashalina Putri. Now, the 29-year-old IT consultant pumps breast milk at her office in central Jakarta and a courier comes to pick up the bottles around lunchtime.

Placing them in a padded cooler box whose strap he then slings over his shoulder, the courier rides 45 minutes to an hour on a motorbike through choked Jakarta streets to deliver the milk to Dewi’s mother, who cares for the baby.

The service was launched in 2010 by Fikri Nauval, owner of a cargo and document shipping business, who said he was inspired by his wife’s using one of his motorcycle riders to send her breast milk home to their baby after she had to return to work.

He charges 30,000 to 40,000 rupiah ($3.30 to $4.40) a trip, keeping track of traffic conditions and the best routes for drivers to take using a GPS map on a computer. “I would like to help this nation build a better generation by helping working mothers deliver breast milk to their babies at home,” said the 40-year-old Nauval, who feels the nutrients in breast milk can’t be replicated by the powdered variety.

His feelings are echoed by the authorities, who are struggling to encourage Indonesian women to breastfeed their newborn babies. The number of women who do so fell to 38 percent in 2007, said Yulianto Santoso Kuniawan, a paediatrician who is also a consultant on breastfeeding.

Most mothers receive information promoting the benefits of formula or free samples while still in hospital after giving birth, but Kurniawan said hospitals need to do more to promote breastfeeding, especially for the natural immunity it provides.

“With this counseling, I can see mothers showing a bigger interest in breastfeeding their children,” she added. Though a ride through the chaos of Jakarta traffic might not seem the best of environments for breast milk, Nauval said his customers all understand and are fine with the idea — just as long as the bottles all arrive safe and sound. ( reuters )

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Woman Tells How She Turned to The Sex Industry

Woman Tells How She Turned to The Sex Industry - After it was revealed yesterday that an increasing number of women are using the sex industry to pay their way through university, one woman has told her story of stripping while studying.

Emma Green, of Glamorgan, Wales, turned to stripping on a webcam for men and earned £200-a-week to fund her studies.

The 25-year-old, who studied multi-media design at Glamorgan University before spending another year at a beauty therapy college in 2009, says a normal part-time job was out of the question because of her intense course workload.

‘I loved both courses, but there were no grants, no funding. Nothing. I literally had nothing to live on’, she told The Sun.

Battling the recession: Emma says shell continue stripping until she can find a full time job, but says there arent any for young people at the moment and shes just getting through the recession

Emma spoke out after the National Union of Students warned that as well as sex work, students are turning to gambling and medical experiments to pay for their education.

Emma said some weeks she was living on as little as £40 before stripping and after claiming a student loan, she found herself buried in debt. A friend told her about the webcam work and informed her that all she needed was a computer with a camera

‘It seemed too good to be true so I tried it out and I must admit the first time I was nervous and didn’t make much money,’ Emma told the newspaper.

‘But after a few goes and the initial shock of going topless and stripping down to my thong, I began to get used to it’, she added.

Miss Green, who now works for Britain’s Got Webcams, says she would strip for two to three hours a night each week – earning between £16 and £20 per hour.

The wage was enough to pay her fees and Emma, who lives with her parents in Glamorgan, says she still now earns £200 a week with the company.

She says she’ll stop stripping once she finds a full time job but says there are none available at the moment for young people.

Emma said: ‘I earn my own money and I’m getting through this recession in the best way I can without having to live off the state.’

Government reforms mean universities can start charging up to £9,000 annually in tuition fees from next year. In addition, the education maintenance allowance (EMA) for 16 to 19-year-olds has been scrapped. It is these reforms that are causing students to turn to the 'informal' sector for money, according to the NUS.

Estelle Hart, the NUS national women’s officer, told BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast: 'Students are taking more dangerous measures.

'In an economic climate where there are very few jobs, where student support has been massively cut, people are taking more work in the informal economy, such as sex work.

'It’s all dangerous unregulated work, simply so people can stay in education.

The NUS also told BBC 5 live Breakfast it estimated about 20 per cent of women working in lap dancing clubs were students.

A Department for Education spokesman said: 'We are targeting £180 million a year financial support at the most vulnerable 16 to 19-year-olds to help them continue their studies - with transitional funding for the students who were getting the top rate of EMA and partway through their studies.

'It is down to schools and colleges themselves to award bursaries to young people who need the most help.

'If students are really struggling financially, they need to speak directly to their tutors.'

A spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said: 'Under the current university funding system, no student has to pay in advance for tuition.

'There is a generous package of financial support to help with living costs in the form of loans and non-repayable grants.

'Our reforms will make the system even fairer, with more financial support and lower monthly repayments once you are in well-paid work.'

A spokesman for the NUS said although they did not have any quantitative evidence, they backed Ms Hart's comments.

'Anecdotally we are seeing a lot more of this and when you combine this with other reports there does seem to be an increase (in students working in the sex industry),' he said.

'We don't have any quantitative basis to back it up but we are confident to say this is an increasing problem.

'This hasn't originated from us but we are very confident standing by what Estelle said to 5 Live.' ( dailymail.co.uk )

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Are you a Dummy Mummy?

Are you a Dummy Mummy? - New parenting jargon shows mums are replacing sexiness with silliness - New mothers have a tendency to think that everyone is just as interested as they are in their baby - and talking about little else.

And now there's a label for such women: Dummy Mummy.

A worrying study of modern day parenting jargon has revealed that Yummy Mummy has been replaced by nicknames for women rendered brain dead or forgetful by their children.

One-track mind: Do you know a Dummy Mummy - someone who only talks about their child?

Dummy Mummy is closely followed by Pramnesia - which describes forgetfulness caused by child-rearing - in the list of top phrases.

Meanwhile, Dadmin refers to jobs particularly suited to Dads - perhaps because Dummy Mummies would not be able to do them properly.

The terms are among those used by modern parents, according to a poll commissioned for the launch of the DVD release of bringing up baby comedy Life As We Know It.

The study also revealed that a Baby Gaga is a toddler who likes to show off and Nansformer is the grandparent who goes from little old lady to multi-tasking supergran as soon as she has a grandchild to cope with.

Others which came out of the research include Code Brown to describe the need to change a nappy and Calpoholics, children who are given medicine so often to keep them quiet they become hooked.

From yummy to dummy: Pramnesia describes forgetfulness caused by child-rearing

Disnefying It is what parents do to mundane places to make them sound exciting to children, such as telling them 'We're going to Asdaland today where we can go on the trolley ride!'

A spokesman for the survey said: 'The term Dummy Mummy is used to describe a new mother who has lost the capacity to talk about anything other than her new born child!

'Further slang alluded to the remarkable abilities of grandparents when it comes to providing baby help (Nansformer) and the soaring cost of childcare (Nanny McFee).'

TOP TEN EXAMPLES OF PARENTING JARGON

1. Dummy Mummy - A woman rendered brain dead by the arrival of her new born who can't talk about anything other than babies
2. The Naughty Two-Step - Ritual dance performed by child to demonstrate reluctance to go and sit on the naughty step
3. Baby Gaga - A little show-off
4. Nansformer - When granny transforms into a multi-functional super-efficient domestic robot upon a baby's arrival
5. Dadmin - Jobs particularly suited to Dad like emptying a nappy bin or putting up a shelf in the nursery
6. Code Brown - A nappy-filler
   
7. Pump and Dump - Pre-expressed milk before mum's night out with the girls (so she doesn't get the baby drunk when she returns)
8. Disneyfying It - Making chores interesting e.g.we're going to Asdaland
9. Pramnesia - Forgetfulness caused by child-rearing
10. Calpoholic - A baby who displays a disposition to medicines ( dalymail.co.uk )

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Women's tears send "no sex" message to men

Women's tears send "no sex" message to men - Women's tears are a turnoff for men, Israeli researchers say.

The findings, in a study by the Weizmann Institute of Science and Wolfson Hospital near Tel Aviv on the role tears play in non-verbal communication, suggest that a chemical in women's tears lowers men's testosterone levels.

Looking beyond any impact on sexual drive, the researchers hope their findings might one day be used in cancer treatment.

The findings, in a study by the Weizmann Institute of Science and Wolfson Hospital near Tel Aviv on the role tears play in non-verbal communication, suggest that a chemical in women's tears lowers men's testosterone levels.

"There are a number of illnesses that are treated by lowering the levels of testosterone, the most prominent is prostate cancer," said Professor Noam Sobel of the Weizmann Institute.

He said the current methods of testosterone reduction cause side effects, and his research team hoped that the use of tears could eliminate them.

Men who took part in the study, published in Science Express, were asked to sniff the tears of women who had cried while watching sad films.

Sobel said researchers had expected the tears would boost the men's sense of empathy. Instead, their heart and respiratory rates, salivary testosterone and a brain scan all pointed to a reduction of sexual arousal.

The chemo-signal in women's tears, he said, was one way of saying "no, I am not interested."

"Communication is key to survival. Humans, like all mammals, use smell in their communication. It is very efficient if you have a chemical signal which transmits what you want -- or clearly don't want -- in a sexual situation," Sobel added.

He said the researchers had set out to study the tears of both men and women, but only one man had responded to a notice put up on Israeli college campuses asking for volunteers who thought they could cry easily. ( canada.com )

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"Back to the Future" Looks Back, 25 Years Later

"Back to the Future" Looks Back, 25 Years Later - Great Scott! It's been 25 years since Marty McFly hopped into that DeLorean and traveled back in time in the original "Back to the Future."


To mark the quarter-century milestone, castmembers Michael J. Fox, Lea Thompson, Christopher Lloyd, Mary Steenburger (who appeared in the third film), Huey Lewis, director/co-writer Robert Zemeckis, co-writer/producer Bob Gale and producer Neil Canton reunited to talk about the films' impact, props they kept and their favorite memories.

From left, Christopher Lloyd, Michael J. Fox, Lea Thompson and director Robert Zemeckis pose for a photo at an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of "Back to the Future" in New York on Oct. 25, 2010. (Credit: CBS/Jessica Derschowitz)

Thompson told reporters that she still has her pink dress from the "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance. "Every Halloween my kids try it on," she said, pointing out her two daughters in the audience.


"What I wish I had was that freakin' guitar!" Fox said, adding that he believes he saved some of his sneakers from the film. "I think I'm still tired from the movie. Does that count as a souvenir?"


Lloyd mentioned a "yellow shirt with trains on it," that he held onto, while Steenburgen kept a pin with her character's name, Clara.


Another hot topic was the futuristic technologies imagined for the films.


"People ask me all the time, 'Where can I get a hoverboard?'" Fox said. "I have no answers for you."


He also talked about how it was "a blessing" to be part of a film that "just made people happy," and had a very direct answer when asked how being in the film changed his life.


"Did it change my life?" he repeated. "It made me really famous."


He also touched on the global popularity of the film, saying, "I love being in Bhutan and someone's going 'McFly!'"


Thompson also recalled her favorite memory from the making of the films - her screen test. "They put some kind of wig and a thing on me, to see if I could play old," she said, adding that it was the most fun she'd ever had during an audition. Steenburgen also shared a favorite memory from her time making "Back to the Future 3" - her love scene with Lloyd, which she said was "very romantic."


When asked what their characters would be doing 25 years later, Fox said that he thought Marty would have kids and be a family man, while Lloyd assured reporters that Doc Brown would still be inventing things, and Steenburgen added that Clara and Doc would still be married. Thompson was unsure, noting that the films showcased different outcomes for Lorraine McFly's life.


But while the series remains beloved by fans around the world - it's being re-released on Blu-ray and DVD on Tuesday to mark the anniversary - the filmmakers say there are no plans for any sequels or reboots of the franchise.


"We love 'Back to the Future' the way it is," Gale said. "We don't wanna screw around with the space-time continuum." ( cbsnews.com )

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Mossad Agents Can Trade Sex for National Security

Mossad Agents Can Trade Sex for National Security - An Israeli rabbi has blessed the use of female spies in "honeytrap" or "honeypot" stings against terrorists, according to a study called "Illicit Sex for the Sake of National Security."


The ruling by Rabbi Ari Schvat, contained in a study published by the Zomet Institute, was first reported by the news agency DPA and published by Haaretz.com.


Israeli officials confirmed the rabbinical ruling and the gist of the study for ABC News.


The Zomet Institute studies the intersection of religion and modernity. It examined whether it was acceptable for female agents of Israel's foreign secret service, Mossad, to have sex with the enemy in so-called "honeypot" or "honeytrap" sting missions.


Israeli intelligence has made repeated use of honeytraps. In 1966, a female Israeli spy convinced an Iraqi pilot to defect to Israel with his MIG. Twenty years later, a female Mossad agent lured Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear technician who had revealed details of Israel's nuclear program, from England to Italy, where he was abducted and brought back to Israel.


But according to Haaretz.com, Rabbi Schvat wrote that honeypot missions are "not just a thing of modern-day espionage."


In fact, honeypot missions are rooted in Biblical lore, according to the report. "Queen Esther, who was Jewish, slept with the Persian king [Ahasuerus] around 500 BC to save her people," Schvat noted.


And, the report noted, Yael, wife of Hever, slept with the enemy chief of staff Sisra to tire him and cut off his head.


However there is a catch for married honeypots. "If it is necessary to use a married woman, it would be best [for] her husband to divorce her. ... After the [sex] act, he would be entitled to bring her back," Schvat wrote.

"Naturally, a job of that sort could be given to a woman who in any event is licentious in her ways."


Rules for male Mossad agents were not mentioned in the writings.


Schvat's study was praised by Zomet's director, Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, according to Haaretz, though Rosen conceded that "women employees of the Mossad are probably not going to come consult with a rabbi" before their missions. ( abcnews.go.com )

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India's myth of fair-skinned beauty

India's myth of fair-skinned beauty - Bollywood's milky-complexioned stars contribute to a beauty culture in India where skin-whitening creams outsell Coca-Cola. Now the global fashion industry is embracing south Asia's darker-skinned models – but will it stop women favouring a fairer look?

Lakshmi Menon models for Zac Posen in New York. Photograph: Randy Brooke/WireImage

Widely regarded as India's first supermodel, Lakshmi Menon has worked with the fashion world's leading names from Jean Paul Gaultier to Hermés and is on the books of Storm – the agency that represents Kate Moss and Lily Cole.

Menon became fashion royalty last year when she was chosen for a 12-page editorial spread in US Vogue – a rare honour, which editor-in-chief Anna Wintour bestows on only her favourite muses.

But this remarkable success story only came about after the Bangalore-born beauty quit India three years ago at the age of 24.

Menon's career had come up against an invisible barrier – and it's one that "dark-skinned" Indians face every day.

"Back home very few people wanted to hire me. It became clear to me that my skin colour was not in demand," recalls Menon who has the deep brown shade of a typical Bangalorean.

"I didn't have much of a career apart from the odd editorial or campaign and the fact is that fairer-skinned models have found more success in India," she says.

The prejudice Menon faced is nothing new in the subcontinent. The misconception that darker skinned Indians are somehow inferior and less desirable than their fairer counterparts has existed for centuries.

"In the ancient scriptures, epics, or folk tales, the good character is always portrayed as being fair in complexion, suggesting that the fair are fair dealing and the dark complexioned has evil intentions," explains Shyamala Bhatia, an associate professor in history at the Bharati College, University of Delhi.

Add to that a history peppered with colonization by lighter-skinned invaders from the west, inequalities introduced by the caste system and 200 years of British rule, and it becomes clear why the concept of fairness being superior is embedded deep within the Indian psyche.

"During the Raj, the idea that those with fair skin were superior came with the packaging. It was never spoken about and there were no propaganda campaigns – it was just understood. The very fact the you were being ruled by pale skinned people meant that they were superior to the natives – you looked up to the white man," explains Dr Premen Addy, a senior lecturer in Asian and international history at Kellogg College, Oxford.

But even after the white rulers had long gone, India continued to be a slave to these misconceptions. From a succession of milky-complexioned Bollywood stars to a burgeoning market for skin-lightening creams, the notion never really went away.

But in today's India – an economic powerhouse with an ever-growing middle class who are proud of their Indian identity – there is a feeling that attitudes are beginning to change.

In April, Vogue India made a bold statement by featuring five "dark-skinned" models on its cover. The accompanying feature spoke of the need to celebrate the "true colour" of the Indian woman. The cover was lauded across the Indian media by journalists who see it as indicative of a wider shift in attitudes.

"Indians have a more international concept of beauty and we are now more in sync with global views and values," says Nonita Kalra, editor-in-chief of Elle India.

"The acceptance happened a long time ago and now it is an established fact."

Anil Chopra, CEO of Indian beauty and fashion giant Lakme Lever, regularly launches modelling careers by handing out big campaign contracts. Chopra doesn't see it as an issue any more: "Skin tone is becoming far less relevant. Just look at India fashion week – more than half the girls are on the duskier side. I sit in on the judging panel ever year and not once have I heard a comment about skin colour."

While the fashion industry may be evolving, it is Bollywood – the movie-churning super industry that really defines Indian values and attitudes. Here, the highest paid actresses tend to be several shades fairer than the average audience member.

According to Saibal Chatterjee, a leading Indian film critic, the industry is guilty of reinforcing these old attitudes. "Yes, we have made some headway with darker-skinned actresses coming through such as Bipasha Basu and Deepika Padukone, but the fair-faced stars like Kareena Kapoor and Katrina Kaif still rule the Bollywood roost," he says.

"The word 'gori' – which literally means fair and has become a byword for a beautiful woman – is still very much a part of the lexicon of Hindi film.

"A bright complexion continues to be equated with pulchritude. Even Bollywood stars endorse skin-whitening creams – the film industry is very much part of the problem," he adds.

Bollywood's shady record in this area was underlined recently when its highest grossing star Shah Rukh Khan fronted a campaign for a skin-lightening cream aimed at men. A-list also actresses continue to promote whitening ranges – Sonam Kapoor appears in adverts for L'Oreal White Perfect, while Katrina Kaif promotes Olay's Natural White range.

With Bollywood continuing to encourage the notion that fairness epitomises beauty, skin-lightening creams are, meanwhile, outselling Coca-Cola in India.

In Britain the fairness-fetish is still very much alive, and a lucrative industry selling potentially harmful whitening creams continues to rise.

Brands such as Lightenex, Nur76, Fade Out and Fair & Lovely fill the shelves of ethnic stores, and are advertised across glossy Asian women's magazines and television channels.

Perhaps even more sinister is a thriving black market for under-the-counter creams pumped with banned lightening ingredients such as mercury and hydroquinone.

The scale of the problem is all too evident to Harley Street dermatologist Dr Aamer Khan who has seen a rise in women suffering from serious skin conditions as a result of trying to bleach their skin.

"I see patients with hypo-pigmentation (loss of pigment) resulting in white patches and hyper-pigmentation leading to darker areas – both are caused by skin bleaching agents. People buy these creams that offer false hopes, but the fact is, there is no safe way to whiten your skin. There needs to be more stringent moderating of these products, as it is a very serious problem."

For south Asians perhaps the most worrying aspect of all this is that the only evidence that suggests we may be finally embracing our true, natural appearance and skin shade is to be found in India.

It is "back home" where, the middle classes in particular, are regaining confidence and self respect lost during colonization.

But are British Asians living in our own modern-day Raj – subconsciously wanting to look more like the whites who ruled over us?

"The fair complexion is still sought by the people from the subcontinent [living] in the UK, because they may believe that it would make them more acceptable in their adopted land, which they want to call their own," says Bhatia.

Dr Addy adds: "Look at the cabinet - it is full of indigenous white people. So just as the Indians in the Raj looked up to the whites – here the whites have power, so perhaps we look up to them.

"But Indians now carry prestige in every industry – from medical, pharmaceutical, science, teaching and even prime-time television. We see Indian news broadcasters, so why one would want to change their skin colour is beyond me." ( guardian.co.uk )

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Teen Obesity Ups MS Risk in Women

Teen Obesity Ups MS Risk in Women. Researchers suspect lower vitamin D levels may be to blame. While there are plenty of good reasons to avoid obesity in your teens, a new study now suggests that extra weight in adolescence may increase your risk of multiple sclerosis (MS) later.

Reporting in the Nov. 10 issue of Neurology, Harvard researchers found that being obese at age 18 more than doubles a woman's risk of developing MS later in life compared to her slimmer peers.

"This is one more study that shows obesity leads to another unhealthy outcome, and obesity during adolescence may be critical in determining MS risk," said study author Kassandra Munger, a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic disorder of the central nervous system, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Although no one is certain what the exact cause of the disease is, scientists believe it's an autoimmune disease. That means the body's immune system mistakenly targets its own cells. In the case of MS, the immune system destroys myelin, a fatty substance that covers nerve fibers, according to the MS society.

The current study included more than 238,000 women who participated in the Nurses' Health Study or the Nurses' Health II study between 1976 and 2002. The women were between 25 and 55 years old at the start of the study.

Body mass index (BMI) was calculated using information given by the women about what their height and weight were when they were 18 and at the start of the study. A BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 is considered normal, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while 25 to 29.9 is overweight and above 30 is obese.

The women were also asked to look at pictures of nine different body silhouettes that ranged in size from very thin to extremely obese, and to identify which silhouette most closely matched hers at ages 5, 10 and 20.

Women who were obese at age 18 had a 2.25 times greater risk of developing MS, according to the study. Being overweight seemed to increase the risk slightly, but not to a level that was statistically significant, Munger noted.

A large body silhouette at age 20 increased the risk of MS by 96 percent, the researchers found. A large body size at age 5 or 10 was not associated with an increased risk of MS, provided that the woman had slimmed down by age 20.

Although this study wasn't designed to find the reason behind the increase, Munger said low vitamin D levels have been suspected of playing a role in the development of MS, and that people who are obese may have lower circulating levels of vitamin D. Another possibility, suggested Munger, is that fat tissue secretes a lot of substances that can affect the immune system.

"We're beginning now to get clues about things that might predispose a person to MS," said Dr. John Richert, executive vice president of research and clinical programs at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. "Up until recently, we've looked at MS as a disease for which the onset can't be controlled, and though it's still mostly that way, maybe there are circumstances where people might be able to lower their risk a little bit. If all the incoming data [from this and other studies] is correct, not smoking and maintaining an ideal weight might lower the risk of MS."

But, of the current study, he added, "As with so many interesting observations, this study raises a lot more questions than it answers."

Munger noted that the study was done solely in women, so the results may not hold true for men. And, additionally, she said, the study participants were almost all white, so it's not clear if this association would hold up for other races. (HealthDay News)

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