Some barriers include the negative attitudes of women and their partners and family members, as well as health care professionals, toward breastfeeding, whereas the main reasons that women do not start or give up breastfeeding are reported to be poor family and social support, perceived milk insufficiency, breast problems, maternal or infant illness, and return to outside employment.2 Several strategies have been used to promote breastfeeding, such as setting standards for maternity services3, 4 (eg, the joint World Health Organization — United Nations Children's Fund [WHO - UNICEF] Baby Friendly Initiative), public education through media campaigns, and health professionals and peer - led initiatives to support individual mothers.5 — 9 Support
from the infant's father through active participation in the breastfeeding decision,
together with a positive attitude and knowledge about the benefits of breastfeeding, has been shown to have a strong influence on the
initiation and duration of breastfeeding in observational studies, 2,10 but scientific evidence is not available as to whether training fathers to manage the most common lactation difficulties can enhance breastfeeding rates.
In The Journal of Clinical Investigation researchers
from VIB, KU Leuven (Belgium)
together with colleagues
from INSERM (France) now report the important role for FES in the
initiation and progression of melanoma, a malignant type of skin cancer, that is notoriously quick to metastasize and that responds poorly to existing cancer treatments.