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Marian Leonard Tompson is one of the seven founders of La Leche League International. She was President of La Leche League for 24 years, from 1956 to 1980, and a member of the Founders Advisory Council. Wife of the late Clement Tompson, she is the mother of seven children, a grandmother and great-grandmother. An early advocate of home birth, four of her children, and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren were born at home.
Tompson was instrumental in developing Breastfeeding Seminars for Physicians hosted regularly by La Leche League and held annually since 1973. She has served on many boards, committees and advisory councils, including the International Advisory Council for the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (1996 to present). ; the Advisory Board for the National Association of Post Partum Care Services (1995), the Advisory Committee for Perinatal Health, Department of Public Health for the State of Illinois (1983); and served as a consultant for the WHO/UNICEF meeting on Infant and Young Child Feeding in Geneva, Switzerland in 1980.
Tompson is an engaging speaker, often representing La Leche League at local, national and international conferences, traveling to more than 20 countries in doing so.
When questions and concerns about connection between breastfeeding and HIV/AIDS arose in the late 1990s, Tompson began to asked for the available research. As a result AnotherLook at Breastfeeding and HIV/AIDS, a nonprofit organization was founded in 2001, dedicated to gathering information, raising critical questions, and stimulating research about breastfeeding in the context of HIV/AIDS. She is president and CEO of the organization.Mrs. Tompson was named a Living Treasure by Mothering (magazine) in March 1998.
In 2010 Marian Tompson was asked by Dr. Thomas W. Hale of Hale Publishing to write her memoir, with the assistance of Melissa Clark Vickers. Passionate Journey, My Unexpected Life was published in June 2011.
In 2024, Tompson resigned for La Leche League, over disagreements about breastfeeding by trans-women, writing in her resignation letter that the "shift from following the norms of nature, which is the core of mothering through breastfeeding, to indulging the fantasies of adults, is destroying our organization." [1]
In the September/October 1982 issue of Mother Earth News, Mrs. Tompson was extensively interviewed about La Leche League and the benefits of homebirth. [2]
In March, 2007, Mrs. Tompson was interviewed by the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. “I had wanted to breastfeed my babies. Yet with my first three babies, and I had three different doctors, I was never able to breastfeed past six months,” Tompson said." [3]
In an interview on December 27, 2007, by the Pioneer Press for the Wilmette Life she explained how she was elected the first president of La Leche League: "They made me the president because it was my idea," Tompson said. "I was very shy and retiring."
She also described her first medication free birth at a local hospital: "I was the only one in the hospital they had seen who had a natural birth," Tompson said. When Tompson gave birth to her third child, a group of 17 hospital employees—externs, interns, even the receptionist—came to watch. "They circled my delivery table," Tompson said. "After it was over, one of the residents walked up to my doctor and said, 'Doctor, how did you do it?'" [4]
La Leche League International (LLLI) is a non-governmental, non-profit organization that organizes advocacy, education, and training related to breastfeeding. It is present in about 89 countries.
Christine Joy Maggiore was an HIV-positive activist and promoter of HIV/AIDS denialism. She was the founder of Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives, an organization which disputes the link between HIV and AIDS and urges HIV-positive pregnant women to avoid anti-HIV medication. Maggiore authored and self-published the book What If Everything You Thought You Knew about AIDS Was Wrong?
The history and culture of breastfeeding traces changing social, medical and legal attitudes to breastfeeding, the act of feeding a child breast milk directly from breast to mouth. Breastfeeding may be performed by the infant's mother or by a surrogate, typically called a wet nurse.
Breastfeeding difficulties refers to problems that arise from breastfeeding, the feeding of an infant or young child with milk from a woman's breasts. Although babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck and swallow milk, and human breast milk is usually the best source of nourishment for human infants, there are circumstances under which breastfeeding can be problematic, or even in rare instances, contraindicated.
Breastfeeding, also known as nursing, is the process where breast milk is fed to a child. Breast milk may be from the breast, or may be pumped and fed to the infant. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommend that breastfeeding begin within the first hour of a baby's birth and continue as the baby wants. Health organizations, including the WHO, recommend breastfeeding exclusively for six months. This means that no other foods or drinks, other than vitamin D, are typically given. The WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life, followed by continued breastfeeding with appropriate complementary foods for up to 2 years and beyond. Of the 135 million babies born every year, only 42% are breastfed within the first hour of life, only 38% of mothers practice exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months, and 58% of mothers continue breastfeeding up to the age of two years and beyond.
Mary Fisher is an American political activist, artist and author. After contracting HIV from her second husband, she has become an outspoken HIV/AIDS-activist for the prevention, education and for the compassionate treatment of people with HIV and AIDS. Fisher is particularly noted for speeches before two Republican Conventions: Houston in 1992 and San Diego in 1996. The 1992 speech has been hailed as "one of the best American speeches of the 20th Century".
Breastfeeding promotion refers to coordinated activities and policies to promote health among women, newborns and infants through breastfeeding.
In Western countries extended breastfeeding usually means breastfeeding after the age of 12 to 24 months, depending on the culture.
Dysphoric milk ejection reflex (D-MER) is a condition in which women who breastfeed develop negative emotions that begin just before the milk ejection reflex and last less than a few minutes. It is different from postpartum depression, breastfeeding aversion response (BAR), or a dislike of breastfeeding. It has been described anecdotally many times, yet one of the earliest case studies on the condition was only published in 2011, and not much research was done prior to that. Even in 2021 when the first review of published literature was done the authors noted that health care providers were still "barely [able to] recognize D-MER."
Diana West is a leading lactation consultant and author specializing on the topic of breastfeeding.
Theresa J. Kaijage is a social worker who advocates for those infected with HIV/AIDS in Tanzania. Kaijage works to raise awareness about the disease and tries to assuage the negative social implications that accompany the diagnosis of HIV/AIDS in Africa.Theresia Kaijage is also the founder and director of the Tanzanian non-governmental organization, WAMATA, which educates and provides counseling services to those with HIV/AIDS.
HIV in pregnancy is the presence of an HIV/AIDS infection in a woman while she is pregnant. There is a risk of HIV transmission from mother to child in three primary situations: pregnancy, childbirth, and while breastfeeding. This topic is important because the risk of viral transmission can be significantly reduced with appropriate medical intervention, and without treatment HIV/AIDS can cause significant illness and death in both the mother and child. This is exemplified by data from The Centers for Disease Control (CDC): In the United States and Puerto Rico between the years of 2014–2017, where prenatal care is generally accessible, there were 10,257 infants in the United States and Puerto Rico who were exposed to a maternal HIV infection in utero who did not become infected and 244 exposed infants who did become infected.
Breastfeeding by HIV-infected mothers is the practice of breastfeeding of HIV-infected mothers and include those who may want to or are currently breastfeeding. HIV can be transmitted to the infant through breastfeeding. The risk of transmission varies and depends on the viral load in the mother's milk. An infant can be infected with HIV throughout the duration of the pregnancy or during childbirth (intrapartum).
The maternal mortality rate is 224 deaths per 100,000 births, which is the 23rd highest in the world. The mean age of mothers at birth is 19.3 years old, and the fertility rate is 5.72 children born per woman, which is the 7th highest in the world. The contraceptive rate is only 40.8%, and the birth rate is the 4th highest in the world at 42.13 births/1,000 population. Infectious disease is a key contributor to the poor health of the nation, and the risk is very high for diseases such as protozoal and bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid fever, malaria, dengue fever, schistosomiasis, and rabies. The adult prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS is 12.37%, which is the 7th highest in the world.
Trevor Kirczenow is a transgender health researcher and diabetes healthcare advocate. He is an author and community organizer in the field of LGBTQ lactation and infant feeding. He has run twice as a candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada.
Contraindications to breastfeeding are those conditions that could compromise the health of the infant if breast milk from their mother is consumed. Examples include galactosemia, untreated HIV, untreated active tuberculosis, Human T-lymphotropic virus 1 or II, uses illicit drugs, or mothers undergoing chemotherapy or radiation treatment.
Anna Coutsoudis is a South African public health scientist and academic who has conducted research on HIV and nutrition, specializing in the benefits of breastfeeding. An elected member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, she is a founder member and chair of iThemba Lethu, an organization for children with HIV, which provides a community-based breast milk bank.
Mary Ann Kerwin is an American lawyer and breastfeeding activist. One of the seven founders of La Leche League in 1956, she established the Colorado branch of the advocacy group and drafted state laws on behalf of women who breastfeed their infants in public and in the workplace. She was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 2012.
Karithi Ruth Wanjiru Nduati is a Kenyan Pediatrician and Epidemiologist who also teaches at the University of Nairobi College of Health Sciences. She is also currently leading an interdisciplinary program through the University of Nairobi School of Medicine to educate physician-researchers to best implement HIV treatment and prevention methods backed by research. The program was funded by the Fogarty Training Grant which is a part of the PEPFAR funds the country of Kenya received.