In Case You Missed It -- IRS Offers Tax Break for Breastfeeding Supplies

Way back in 2011, the IRS, after years of refusing to do so, agreed to allow tax breaks for breastfeeding women.  This will allow women to claim up to $1000 for breastfeeding supplies, including pumps, pads, storage aids, etc.

Many women are not aware of this tax break.  With Obamacare, many insurance companies are paying for breast pumps to help women to continue to breastfeed after returning to work, or to keep up a supply if baby does not come to the breast.

Jesus told his disciples to "render unto Cesaer that which is Cesaer's".  We are to pay our taxes, even if  "Cesaer" is wanting more and more.  But since this deduction has been approved, you should take advantage of it.

Evidently Cesaer does still have a bit of common sense.  Breastfeeding saves the health care system billions of dollars each year. It also saves the lives of about 900 babies a year in the U.S. alone.  Yet, it seemed to be the health benefits to breastfeeding mothers, and not the babies, that tuned out to be the tipping point to approve this deduction.  Go figure.  However it was decided, the deduction is available, and that is a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say.

Check with your tax adviser for more information, but keep those receipts!

http://www.getirshelp.com/irsblog/2966/tax-breaks-for-breast-feeding-supplies/

If you are shopping for some supplies, these items can be found at the web site of a good company, Baily Medical Engineering. The storage bags and the pads are currently ON SALE! 

Barry Bailey, the president, is a really great guy and has good products.   BME has a  program to help financially stressed women who do not have good insurance and who need a pump when returning to work or school.  It is not intended to function as a hospital grade pump for women pumping exclusively and giving the expressed milk to their babies by bottle or other method.  

This pump has a 5 year warranty and has a closed system.  This means you can give or sell the pump to a friend when you have finished because no bacteria or viruses can enter the system.  All she needs to do is purchase a new attachment kit.

This pump is semi-automatic vs. automatic, which is reflected in the price.  I have worked with women who have used and loved this pump.  I am not endorsing it as THE breast pump to buy -- no pump is right for all women.  However, this is a great pump and kit, and the price point can't be beat.  Bailey Medical Engineering will be happy to answer your questions. Just click on the bags, or pads, or pump to visit BME's web site.

 

10 Things You Can Still Accomplish While Nursing Your Baby

My daughter in law sent a link to this to me via Facebook.  I remember the days of cross-stitching while nursing.  We can make that number 11 . . . IF anyone still cross stitches!

Enjoy!

10 Things You Can Still Accomplish While Nursing Your Baby

For some reason, we moms have it in our head that we must constantly be accomplishing something (as if caring for our young night and day for a few decades is not quite the accomplishment).  I used to feel a little tied down while nursing my babies, but I have come to appreciate both the times of beautiful stillness that are born from the quiet nursing moments and also the not-so-still times.   Here are just a few (or more than a few) things that can still be accomplished while nursing a baby.

1. Type (or read) a blog post titled “10 Things You Can Still Accomplish While Nursing A Baby”.
2. Instruct your child from the chair where you are sitting to take one of his blocks and squish the not-so-cute spider you just spotted scurrying across the carpet.  Never mind, he is not listening.  You will have to take matters into your one free hand.  Get up off the couch, grab one of the 152 wooden blocks scattered across the living room floor, and kill the spider yourself (You can vacuum it up later, no need to get crazy here). Return to the couch-baby will hardly notice (Just a little turbulence as far as he’s concerned).
3.  Tend to the emotional needs of your other children.  Apologize to your older child who is now a little upset hat there are spider guts on his blocks.  The fact that there are still 151 clean blocks makes no difference to him (Wait a minute, aren’t boys supposed to like spider guts???)  At the same time you are trying to comfort your daughter who is now crying inconsolably because “you just killed part of God’s creation!”. You are a little confused and slightly annoyed that she is being so unreasonably emotional.  That is, until you remember that she has seen her mother crying quite a bit lately for no apparent reason….
4. Stand at the stove to keep an eye on what you are making for supper. If the phone happens to ring, no problem.  Ask your child playing in the next room to bring you the phone.  Never mind, she is not listening.  Set your spoon down, quickly stabilize baby as you make your way to the living room for the phone hunt. After the third time of sticking your hands between the couch cushions you should be able to find the phone. Answer with a calm “Hello?” and return to the kitchen (watch out for those blocks that are still scattered all over the floor) to stir your stir-fry before it burns.  (After the fact, you make mental note that next time you will just let the phone ring.  No sense putting your baby or your sanity at risk for a telemarketer.)
5. Read your child a book.  Sit on the bathroom floor and read the little potty training book to your toddler as she sits on her potty chair (trying to simplify things by just having one in diapers). At the same time you are encouraging your preschooler, sitting beside you on your other side, who is beginning to read. Patiently (I say “patiently” because he keeps interrupting as you are trying to read another book), answer his questions as he is learning new words, “Mom, what does P-O-O-H spell?” As this is all going on you realize that you still haven’t used the bathroom since you woke up almost 6 hours ago.  You know you could stop reading and go really quick but the last two times you tried to do that with the baby the doorbell rang and this time you are not taking any chances.  You decide it can wait until nap time.  You continue with the reading and answering questions, “Yes, P-O-O-H spells ‘pooh’.  Good job!”
6. Sit down at the dinner table to eat supper with your family. Nothing like enjoying the fruit of your labors. You can use your free hand to cut up your toddler’s food while your husband dishes out the plates for the other children (hey, he deserves some credit here). Your baby has been a bit fussy ever since you sat down and suddenly you realize his diaper has leaked completely through the back of his clothes. You stop the baby from nursing in order to clean him up and change his clothes. You return to the table and let him return to nursing while you carefully bring your fork across your baby and up to your mouth, trying not to drop food all over the front of your shirt or on your baby’s clean clothes.  Mmmm.  Cold stir-fry never tasted so good.  As everyone finishes up their meal, you wonder who has made the bigger mess…you or your toddler???
7. Nurse ANOTHER baby! Yes, mothers of multiples and moms with babies born close together can nurse two babies at the same time.  This is multi-tasking at its sweetest.
8. Sing to your baby.  He loves the sound of your voice. Hold his hand, he loves to touch you. Look into his eyes, he loves to gaze upon the most important woman in his life…Now wait a minute, remember I am talking about your baby.  Save that thought though, you might need it later.  All this sweet interaction between you and your baby has put him to sleep.  Ah, SLEEP!  Time for bed!!!  It’s been a long day.  Goodnight!    Wait a minute, your husband is following you into the bedroom (I told you to save that thought).  Alright, no big deal.  Remember that you will be up at least twice (or 4 or 5 times) in the night to nurse your baby so losing out on 15 more minutes of sleep really won’t make that big of a difference.  And after all, he did do the supper dishes for you.  Even so, you can’t help but wonder if it is the smell of dried spit-up or the un-brushed hair that your husband finds most attractive (???).
9. Sit and ponder.  Yes, what a wonderful time to simply rest for a few minutes and soak up the wonder as your baby soaks up the sweet milk.   Think about how because God so loved the world, He humbled himself to leave the glory of Heaven and take on human flesh in the form of a baby. You could think about this for quite a while and yet a lifetime is not long enough to fully ponder the depths of this miracle.
10. Pray.  What a wonderful opportunity to talk with our Great God, the giver of all life, who did not stay a baby, but died, came back to life and now lives and reigns enthroned in the Heavens.  Thank and praise Him for the incredible little (HUGE!) blessing He has placed in your your arms for such a time as this.
“YET YOU ARE HE WHO TOOK ME FROM THE WOMB; YOU MADE ME TRUST YOU AT MY MOTHER’S BREASTS.  ON YOU I WAS CAST FROM MY BIRTH, AND FROM THE WOMB YOU HAVE BEEN MY GOD”  ~Psalm 22:9-10

This entry was posted on December 13, 2013, in Faith Growing through Mothering.

"Wonderfully Made" and "Colostrum --The Gold Standard" Revisited

Psalm 139:13 - 16 -- "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.  When I was woven

together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.  All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

This passage came to mind, yet again, when I was attending a webinar yesterday.  The topic centered on the importance of colostrum in the first two weeks of life, and how formula disrupts a crucial process.

There are components in amniotic fluid which serve specific roles in the development of the unborn baby.  Some directly affect the growth of the gastrointestinal tract.  With advances in technology, we are learning more about how the environment of the G.I. tract impacts our immune systems.  (Manufacturers of probiotics are thrilled -- cha ching!)

But there is a system that exists which is so detailed and wonderful I could barely follow all the scientific jargon that accompanied the explanations yesterday.  I said, "barely".  My old A&P course served me well enough to grasp, once again, how amazingly intricate is God's design in the process of creating and developing those babies created in His image:  human beings.

Amniotic fluid starts the process of developing healthy villi  Villi are little finger like projections in the gut which are responsible for absorbing nutrients while not allowing bad bacteria, digesting food, etc. to enter into the circulatory system.  Colostrum continues the process of proper development.    If this process is interrupted or altered by the introduction of foreign substances, like formula, the negative effects are life long.  The person is then more susceptible to intestinal diseases, auto immune diseases, and a variety of disorders which can show up from time to time all along the life span.

Colostrum is more similar to amniotic fluid in preparing the newborn's G.I. tract to accept mature breast milk, and later other foods.  If a woman desires to formula feed, things will go much better if she breastfeeds exclusively for the critical first two weeks (as defined by the speaker, Dr. Paula Meier, Director for Clinical Research and Lactation in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and a Professor of Women, Children and Family Nursing and a Professor of Pediatrics at Rush University Medical Center).

This is one reason why the Joint Commission -- an organization which accredits hospitals which maintain certain safety and health standards -- has recently made exclusive breastfeeding during the hospital stay one of it's core measures.  More and more hospitals will now be developing ways to inform expectant women of the risks of formula feeding.  They also will be working harder to minimize unnecessary supplementation.  

Or, and I hope this does not occur, they will be sending normal babies, with minor feeding problems, to the NICU so they are removed from the tracking list -- making the hospital statistics look better than they really are.  This could even lead to more breastfeeding failure overall.

Another fact which was mentioned in the webinar yesterday was that during the first 24 hours of life, newborns ingested only about 15 ccs (3 teaspoons or 1 tablespoon) of colostrum.  This amount is spread over about 10 to 12 feedings during a 24 hours period.   If you do the math, that is about 1.5 ccs (1/3 or so of a teaspoon) per feeding.  Drops!

Healthy term babies have fat stores which provide energy until the tiny stomach begins to expand and mother's milk supply begins to increase.   This system helps protect the baby's brain from undernourishment and brain damage during a time of decreased intake.  Colostrum goes to work, in increasing quantities and with ongoing changes in composition to continue setting up developmental and protective systems within the baby.  The G.I. track is somewhat of a central point for this critical stage of development.

Not only does the introduction of formula interfere with the work of epithelial cell growth factors (which help the villi become "thicker", longer, stronger, and more capable of performing their intended function), the OVERFEEDING of formula releases in chemicals which disrupts the normal process.  Overfeeding of formula is standard.  Most newborns, when supplemented, are given an ounce of formula per feeding.  This is twice the normal amount of intake the healthy newborn ingests on the first day of life, according to Meier.

So, if a newborn only takes in 1 tablespoon in the first 24 hours, with gradually increasing amounts over the new few days, why do they want to nurse so much?  Because it is their "job"!  A colleague, Dr. Stephen Buescher says, "They LIKE it!". 

God gives babies a strong desire to suckle.  They can even crawl up to the breast and latch themselves if they are not too medicated and are given the opportunity.  

Babies quickly calm and reorganize when they are skin to skin with mom (or dad).  Their heart and breathing rates slow to normal more quickly.  Their blood sugars stabilize sooner than when they are in a bassinet.  They LIKE snuggling and nursing.

Research is showing us that the amount of sucking, and the various types of suckling the baby does actually causes changes in the mother's breast.  These changes, in part, are responsible to a variety of things. One important one is the timing of mature milk production.  It also releases certain factors, good bacteria, etc. into her milk to help baby set up a proper G.I. tract environment.

The baby is NOT using mom as a pacifier; the baby it trying to keep a proven system on track. Mom's body keeps baby warm and at the right temperature.  Being skin to skin with mom helps baby's breathing, heart rate, blood sugars, and so on to become stabilized.  Mom's body releases oxytocin, which facilitates milk let down.  Man's "wisdom", yet again, can interfere with this process.  Over the past several decades, time at the breast and contact with mom's body has been limited.  Pacifiers and supplements are given.  Babies and mothers have been, and in some cases, still are, unnecessarily separated.  And the thought that a newborn can be "spoiled" is ridiculous.   

While I was sitting there, soaking up this information, or at least letting it splash on me and hoping all of it would not run off my back like some lactation duck, I could not help but worship our "beyond super intelligent" God.  Yet, I still had to listen to how evolution occurred over vast amounts of time to develop a system which protects human so well.  The obvious question to me was "If it took so long to develop this intricate system, how did early humans survive long enough to procreate?"  This was then followed by "How can individual cells have the intelligence and and the ability to improve their own poor processes?  It would take a well-working cell to do so, and it were working well, why would it change?"

No, friends, it takes an amazing, omnipotent, omniscient, and very loving God to create a being as "wonderfully made" as man.  Even though we are in a state of falleness and living in a world under the curse of sin, God has provided ways to nourish and protect His little ones.  Of course nothing is guaranteed to work perfectly, and it won't until the Earth has been renewed by the little baby, and one day King of Kings,  born in Bethlehem, nourished by the milk He Himself designed.  Until that time, He has provided the best way to help ensure the healthful development of His tiniest creatures -- amniotic fluid, colostrum, and mature breast milk, all delivered in and on a woman's body.  And that, too, has been "wonderfully made".

Enjoy this Christmas season.  And, if you are new mother, like M.C. whom I visited recently, enjoy this special time with your new baby.  And Dad, keep up the good work encouraging and helping her.

The Numbers Game

One new mother I know wrote something about liking the fact that formula could be measured.  I sent a reply reminding her that breastmilk has little waste product and is used more efficiently than formula.  Even the stools are different.  Since they don't supply the same nutrition, "measuring" really tells us very little.   

The real measurement for breastfed babies is their output and growth pattern.

Kitty Frantz, a nurse practitioner and lactation consultant, has developed an app to help moms figure out how much expressed breast milk to leave with the sitter.  It calculates amount by a reverse sort of method.  You can check it out at the link below.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/breast-milk-calculator/id348623986



One problem with the calculator is that it does not measure the caloric content of the milk, which can differ from feeding to feeding and from mother to mother.  One baby maybe ingesting more milk with fewer calories and another may be ingesting milk with higher calories at any given feeding.

Dr. Jack Newman, whom I have mentioned in a few previous posts, wrote this article a couple of years ago and reprinted it recently. 

"The futility of “breastfeeding by the numbers”

Once upon a time, mothers breastfed their babies without “numbers” and it almost always worked. Then, at the end of the 19th century, “scientific” infant feeding was born and everything changed. The medical speciality of paediatrics actually developed as the “science of infant feeding”. “Formulas” were developed by paediatricians and were called formulas because they were both complicated and “scientific”. Paediatricians taught mothers how to take x amount of whole milk, y amount of sugar in some form, and z amount of water. (INSERT NOTE:  My baby book lists Carnation evaporated milk and Karo corn syrup (high fructose corn syrup) as the ingredients for the "formula" the doctor gave my mother.) The amounts changed with the weight of the baby. Babies were fed by the numbers, so many minutes on each side every so many hours. Straying from the “scientific” road was frowned upon and not following the straight and narrow advised by paediatricians would lead to “spoiled” children and even, eventually, to juvenile court (this is not a joke, parents were told this by paediatricians). Mothers were strongly urged that even if they foolishly wanted to breastfeed instead of using the “scientific” milks, they should follow “scientific” guidelines.

Then it got better for a while, but only for a while. La Leche League and other mother to mother groups and many mothers realized themselves that feeding the baby when the baby wanted to feed made more sense than to let the baby cry for 30 or 60 minutes until the 3 or 4 hours had passed. And now we are back to “scientific” breastfeeding.

Numbers on demand in 2013

Although we no longer, usually, say to mothers to feed by the clock in the same was as before, we have too often only changed the way we say the same thing. For example, “Feed the baby on demand, but don’t let the baby go more than every 3 hours without feeding and make sure you don’t feed the baby more than every two hours, because your breasts won’t have filled up”. We also say such things as “make sure you feed the baby at least 20 minutes on each side so the baby gets the ‘hindmilk’”.

“Dehydration”

Now we have become panicked that breastfed babies become “dehydrated” and have imposed such rules as “the baby cannot lose more than 10% of his birth weight” (or 5% or 7%, take your choice since there is no evidence for any of the numbers). Basing whether a baby is breastfeeding well or not or is dehydrated on % weight loss makes no sense at all. First of all, in most hospitals, babies are weighed on two different scales. The birth weight is usually determined on a scale in delivery. The next weights are determined in postpartum. Scales can sometimes weigh differently. We have seen anywhere from 80 to 400 grams difference between two electronic scales. Even if a baby is weighed on the same scale, errors are often made in transcribing the weights to the baby’s medical record.

However, modern obstetrics usually fills women in labour up with very large amounts of intravenous fluids. Some of the fluid also goes to the baby so the baby is born “extra heavy” and loses extra weight after birth simply by peeing out the extra water and so the weight loss does not necessarily mean that the baby is getting dehydrated, only less overhydrated.

Even if % weight loss actually meant something, the approach should be to help the mother and baby breastfeed better. That’s not what is usually done; what is usually done is automatically to give the baby formula which I believe is a very wrong approach.

(This is added today --12/10/13 -- added for clarity. In an article in a pediatric journal published in December 2013, a group of "experts" now say that losing 5% in the first 24 hours was a marker for poor breastfeeding. I am shocked that someone could write and the journal could publish such an article.)

Pediatricians add their own numbers

Recently, pediatricians have decided that the serum sodium concentration tells us if the baby is dehydrated or not. If the serum sodium concentration is elevated, then the baby is dehydrated.

Nonsense! We don’t know what a normal serum sodium is in a 3 day old baby, say, who is breastfeeding well and exclusively, so how can we say what “elevated” means? After all, the exclusively breastfed newborn of three days is not getting large amounts of fluids as is a child of 1 year or an exclusively formula fed newborn of three days. The latter two might be expected to have “normal” serum sodiums, though I would argue that the exclusively formula fed newborn of 3 days is not feeding normally (they are getting too much) and thus cannot be used as the standard. Incidentally, it would be a very easy study to measure the serum sodium of 2 or 3 day old babies who are exclusively breastfeeding and see what the normal sodium is.

These are just a few of the absurdities dressed up as science with regard to breastfeeding in the year 2013. To the above I could add weighing babies before and after a feeding and many other bits of breastfeeding by the numbers. But don’t expect it to get better soon because the problems all stem from the fact that many, the majority I dare say, health professionals don’t have the faintest idea of what a good latch is or how to observe a baby at the breast and know if he is drinking well from the breast or not. If they did, we would be miles ahead. Don’t ask how many miles, please.

Videos showing babies drinking well at the breast or not drinking well can be found at at our website (click “online info”). The videos have explanatory texts in 13 different languages.

Breastfeeding Inc. The World's Breastfeeding Resource

www.breastfeedinginc.ca

Breastfeeding Inc. offers a wealth of free online resources for breastfeeding mothers as well as health care professionals. You can also order Books, DVD's and other resources in the online store. Additionally, there are articles, newsletters, podcast and a blog.

Breast Feeding, Inc.

I have recently come across a good web site for breastfeeding professionals (by the way, breastfeeding can be a compound word, also) and for mothers.  It contains helpful videos and good information.  Dr. Jack Newman, a Canadian physician, has been helping women breastfeed for decades.  His clinic sees women from all over the world who want to breastfeed, but are having difficulties.

Below is the link.  Enjoy browsing the site.  If you like it, tell your doctor about it.

http://www.breastfeedinginc.ca/content.php?pagename=videos

Late Preterms Can't Breastfeed Effectively? Watch This!

It is common in our culture to whisk late pre-term babies (34-36 weeks gestation) to the NICU or special care nursery.  Later, mom can "try" to breastfeed.  Mothers are often left to try to get their tiny ones to latch without help.  The mother is usually sitting in a chair, upright, and trying to get her tiny one to latch.  The NICU nurse may be busy with another baby.  The lactation consultant may not have been notified to provide assistance.  This is because it is ASSUMED that babies of this age can not breastfeed effectively.  

What often happens is that the mother is given a nipple shield to help the baby maintain the latch.  All of this often leads to formula supplementation, bottle feeding, and cessation of breastfeeding. What should be tried first is breastfeeding in a semi-reclined position, with skin to skin contact. 

Hand expression, coupled with pumping, can more quickly increase mom's milk supply.  Pasteurized breast milk can fill in as needed.  Alternative feeding methods can be employed to keep baby off the bottle feeding/weaning track.

Below is a video of a newborn 36 weeker (born in an eastern European country), who was allowed to self attach after the delivery.  The baby crawled to the breast, as is common for term babies to do, and latched.  Effective breastfeeding ensued.

Instead of assuming that late pre-terms can't latch, maintain a latch, and breastfeed effectively, perhaps they should be allowed to breastfeed in a more natural position  -- one which cooperates with the reflexes God provided them with. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kCODzKxDl4&feature=c4-overview&list=UU3ttCe8WtZqHsCorrY6VJkg

Junk Food During Pregnancy Makes a Junk Food Junkie Offspring?

A fairly recently published study suggests that when women eat junk food during pregnancy, their babies are at risk for being addicted to junk food during their lives.

IF this, and other related studies end up showing a strong correlation between junk food in pregnancy and junk food addiction in the baby, and later child, then adult, then I would expect physicians would provide this information to their pregnant patients.  After all, the infant's health is impacted throughout it's lifespan.  Women would want to know the risks of eating junk food during pregnancy, right?

Wait a minute!  We can't give them this information, even if years of studies and countless findings could reinforce such a connection!  Why?  IT MIGHT MAKE THE MOTHERS FEEL GUILTY IF THEY DECIDE TO EAT JUNK FOOD DURING THEIR PREGNANCY!

However -- and I repeat, IF this association proves to be accurate over time -- if physicians and other health care workers routinely tell their patients about such a risk, and openly encourage healthful eating during pregnancy, then a double standard of double standards would exist.

How?  Because we have years of research and countless studies addressing the risks of formula feeding, yet most OBs and health care providers will not detail those risks.  They are concerned about making women feel guilty.

Another reason physicians would probably talk honestly and openly about good nutrition in pregnancy and this danger of eating junk food, is that there would not be any junk food companies providing literature on healthful eating.  They would not be providing free samples of their products to OB offices and hospital to be given to expectant women.  Unfortunately, we have had formula companies doing this for decades.  

Formula companies have been marketing themselves to be the experts in infant nutrition.  They will sponsor conference speakers who do not even mention formula in their presentations.  They may even cite information that puts breastfeeding in a better light than formula.  The companies are willing to do this to maintain the illusion that they are the experts to whom physicians and hospitals should turn to provide education for their patients.  Then, they can get slanted, and even inaccurate information into the hands of less informed women.  They can even gather information in order to provide free formula, coupons, and other gifts to ensnare the mothers who are having trouble breastfeeding.  The benefits of capturing these customers outweighs the occasional "dissing" of formula.  And most health care providers fall for this plan.

Women should be given information on the risks of any lesser form of nutrition for themselves, their unborn, their newborns, their babies, and their young children.  That information should not come from the companies which promote the inferior food.  It should be based on sound research, not potential for profits.  

Will some women feel guilty if they eat junk food during pregnancy?  Yes.  Do some women feel guilty for formula feeding?  You bet.  Do some women feel bad because they can not breastfeed, even though they fought hard to do so?  Of course!  Does this make any of them "bad" mothers?  No it does not.  We all have to live with our choices, or with the circumstances we face, including those wish did not exist. 

Here is the link to the study on the possible effects of eating junk food during pregnancy, if you care to take a look.  I think more study is in order, so I am not going to strongly advocate for eating only healthful good during pregnancy . . . yet.

http://www.fasebj.org/content/27/3/1275.abstract

Of course we are aware that healthful food is the norm for good health for mom and the developing baby.  I am not going to say that "there are benefits for eating healthful food during pregnancy."  It is the standard.  If the time comes that this link between eating junk food and having junk food addicted kids is confirmed, then I will talk about "the risks of eating junk food during pregnancy" -- just like we should be talking about the risks of the unnatural infant food, formula.

Photos courtesy of The Alpha Parent and Unlatched.  Used with permission.

Now, excuse me while I go look for a snack.  Hopefully it will be healthful.  But, if the potato chips call my name, I may feel a little guilty while I enjoy the crunchy, salty, unhealthful pleasure.  At least for now, my choice is informed and it is mine to make.