I am a nurse-midwife in Clearwater, Florida. I am concerned about hospital services for women delivering their babies on or around Dec. 31, 1999. I want to provide information to my clients and the women in my community on how to prepare for Y2K. What information is out there for safeguarding the lives of newborns and their mothers under Y2K conditions?

-- Ellen Edmondson (eedmondson@usa.net), July 24, 1999

Answers

Site http://jtex.net/y2kwomen/ may have info

-- Evil Roy (EvilRoy@NoSpam.com), July 28, 1999.

One of the best things that you can do is to help establish healthy breastfeeding practices with your clients. Give them postive information about family co-sleeping arrangements, so that if there is a power failure the babies will be warmer sleeping with their mothers. I have a page on Y2k and resources for parents on my Mountain Y2k website at http://www.fortunecity.com/millennium/tinkywinky/999/ . One useful resource for your community is the "Reports from Conference Sessions, Session 307: (Global Interactive Workshop) Breastfeeding in Emergency and Relief Situations: refugee camps, war, famine, earthquakes, and other natural disasters" by Lisa Mo. You can find it at the La Leche League website, and I think it would be useful to get into the hands of local shelter organizers (call your local Red Cross for the most appropriate person to convey this to). http://www.lalecheleague.org/99conf/rep307.html

-- Firemouse (firemouse@fcmail.com), November 20, 1999.