Ooops - 4 weeks!

I was embarrassed today to notice it's been 4 weeks since I posted to this. Ooops. I've been busy being an Astronomer and a Mom! I've been busy happily letting memories of my last trip fade away (how traumatic it felt to be away for a whole week - now I barely remember it!). And I've been getting tired observing remotely from my living room in the middle of the night. This is reminding me of being 8 months pregnant (when I last had a significant amount of time on this telescope) and balancing my laptop on my giant tummy! All in all I don't miss that stage!

To make up for my absence here is my favourite recent picture of the little one. Especially for you - ScienceMama. Good luck at your conference! If it's anything like my last trip Bean will be fine, but you'll be a mess - and see babies everywhere you turn. So here is another one for you!

BPA in Baby Bottles

One of the things I forgot from my previous To Do list post, is that I would like to have time to really understand the issues around the hot topic of BPA in baby bottles. I know that some baby bottles are made of plastic which includes this BPA chemical and lots of people are worried about that. This includes the Avent bottles which we used with our little one since they have a nipple which is supposed to mimic a mother's breast, and we wanted to do all we could to make sure little one kept breast feeding even after she had to have bottles as I was back at work.

I feel that as a scientist I ought to be able to understand the BPA issue and make up my mind about it for myself. I'm very disatisfied with most articles I read about it which don't seem to really present the facts - they usually just say that some people are worried about it and provide a list of baby bottles without BPA. What I think I understand is that BPA is dangerous to animals and people in large enough quantities. What I'm not sure about is if large quantities of BPA are really coming out of baby bottles which are made with BPA.... It sounds like if you heat your baby bottle to 200 Celsius enough will come out - but we never do that. Nor do we use (or even have) a dishwasher, or microwave bottles. In fact I've started giving little one cold bottles of cows milk - although my husband still likes to heat the milk in the bottle warmer as he thinks she drinks more that way. So the question is do we really need to replace these bottles. I don't know why - but I like the Avent company, and I feel annoyed that they must be loosing a lot of business over this when it doesn't seem totally clear to me it's really a problem. I feel like someone is playing on parent's concern for their babies. Of course we want to make sure they're not consuming dangerous chemicals.

Avent sticks by it's bottles saying "Scientists around the world have been studying the effects of bisphenol A for years and governing bodies, such as the FDA and EFSA have approved the usage of Polycarbonate plastics in consumer goods, specifically with contact with foods in mind." and "We have full confidence in our current bottle, which has been used by millions of healthy babies in over 70 countries worldwide. We always strive to reach new levels of design and engineering excellence to meet the evolving needs of parents and babies. Building on its already diverse portfolio of infant feeding products, Philips AVENT will introduce new materials into its line this summer."

So that's reassuring, but confusing given everything else out there about avoiding BPA, and also the fact that their new line will be made from BPA free plastic.

I heard a rumor that Babies R Us may be giving store credit for returned BPA bottles, so we might try that this weekend just in case. We still need a couple of bottles, but mostly little on is on sippy cups now anyway. I just feel that I'm being unfair acting on my fears before I really understand this issue. But I really don't have time to chase it down. Does anyone out there know of a good scientific article on this understandable to an astronomer with a physic degree?

My To Do Lists

I usually have huge and totally unrealistic To Do lists, but lately it's got out of control! I won't even talk about all the work things, or things related to our upcoming transatlantic move, but I thought it would be fun to list some of the things I would like to do if I had more free time.

1. Write letters to Heathrow and Sydney airports pointing out that they ought to let working mothers travel with breast milk. If the TSA can do it, I can't see why they can't.

2. Going along with 1 - in general be more of an advocate for breast feeding, get involved with the La Leche league??

3. Go back to learning Chinese again. Ideally in a class setting, but at the very least start listening to ChinesePod podcasts while cooking.

4. Write more articles about astronomy on this blog. ;)

5. Make more photo books of little one.

6. Fill in little one's baby book.

I'm sure there were more in my head at one point, but now I've forgotten them, and it's time to go pick up little one from daycare - my favourite time of day. :)

International Travel Part 2

As promised here is my second post about international travel and breast feeding (see Part 1).

This time I went a lot further - to Australia. That's basically a 24 hour trip from where I live, meaning I had to pump enroute. I planned to use the airport facilities during a connection at SFO, but it ended up being a rush to make the connection so instead I pumped in an airplane toilet.... On the way back I was able to use the facilities at SFO. They have a nursery which is available to pumping mothers so I used that. There were two wierd things about it though - the first was the big sign saying it was only for use by parents with children (leading to some odd looks from the family coming out as I went in), the other was that the door wasn't completely opaque (glass window with opaque strips). Anyway I put my back to the door and sat in a comfy chair in a room which wasn't a bathroom to pump. Not too bad! Thanks SFO.

One thing I didn't find out last time is that Medela does not recommend using power converters for international travel (something about putting two transformers in serial? I should know this having a Physics degree!) so what I did in the UK was technically wrong. Instead you should either buy a new Medela plug for the appropriate country, or use the battery pack. The positive things about this - you can pump anywhere (eg an airplane toilet) as you don't need an electrical supply. The negative - well it uses a lot of batteries. Although for my week away, pumping twice a day, I used only 1 set of 10 AA batteries, so not so bad.

Anyway I pumped enroute - leading to one big question.... Could I bring this milk in Australia? They have fairly strict customs rules, and I could not find any reference to breast milk except if your baby was with you. In the end it turned out to be fine. I declared it and had a funny moment with a customs officer who asked where it came from... me..?! What he meant was where did I pump it.., although I can't see why that matters. As in the UK, there was much confusion at this point as to why I would have breast milk but no baby - I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept...

The other question of course is if for the return can I go through airport security with breast milk in Australia? Turns out they have two kinds of security. For domestic travel all liquids are allowed, and in fact boarding at the small regional airport there was no security at all! For international travel they have similar liquid rules as the US, except that (like the UK) the exception for breast milk only applies if you are traveling with your baby... Lucky for me I saw some friends with a baby early on in my trip so I left them 2 days worth of milk, and the milk from the remaining 4 days was little enough to meet the regulations. So no problem....

Sadly all this travel is dwindling my milk supply. I pumped about half as much each time on this trip as I did in the UK. Of course the fact that I was working 12+ hours a day (night?), had to pump twice while observing in the control room with no privacy (at 3am I didn't expect any visitors, but that would be just my luck!), and the huge time difference/sleep deprivation probably didn't help. I'm home now for a while which is great.

(Little One's contribution to this blog - apart from making it take about 3 hours to write: "```````````", got to go - we're having one of "those" mornings.)

Good Job News

Much to my amazement I finally have some good job news. I got the first grant I applied for to work at the place near my husband's new job. It's actually a fairly prestigious sounding award too, so it'll look great on my CV. It's about 50% support so there are some details to work out, but there is another pot of money I'm waiting to hear about which may sort all that out. I'm having a hard time taking it in after the job season we've had, but it is fun to finally have good news to share, instead of news of yet another job I didn't get.

Beautiful Saturn

One of the things which initially attracted me to Astronomy was the beauty of astronomical images. Astronomy is almost unique among the sciences in that it produces images which can be appreciated both for their science as well as for pure aesthetic pleasure. A prime example of this duality has recently opened at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. It's an exhibit of images of Saturn from the Cassini-Huygens mission.

Quoted in the Cornell Daily Chronicle, Elizabeth Bilson (retired administrative director of the Cornell Astronomy Department) says of the image which inspired her to suggest the exhibition, "it glowed". She put forward the idea to members of the Cassini-Huygens team at Cornell who then worked together to select other images to be included in the exhibition which includes about 100 images in total.



And what a beautiful sight it truly is. This image was taken when Cassini-Huygens passed into the shadow Saturn allowing it to be shown spectacularly back-lit by the Sun. This image could never have been taken from Earth and is only available to us thanks to the dedication of astronomers, planetary scientists and engineers who worked on the Cassini-Huygens mission.

Thanks for indulging me, and what a delight is has been to write a post about Astronomy. Finally the job season is over and I hope for more of this to come. I chose "Astronomom" as a name (instead of some generic science mom title) not only because I thought it sounded cool but also because I actually wanted to talk about Astronomy as well as the challenges of being a scientist and a mother. After all I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't love the subject!

International Travel

I just got back from a short trip to Europe for a second interview for that "cool outreach" position I mentioned (this is following an interview last month via video conference). I'm aparantly now one of two candidates - so keep your fingers crossed. Anyway travelling internationally away from little one posed some interesting questions and I thought it might be helpful to post my findings here. I'm still nursing little one morning and night (and other times if she demands it - which she often does). I didn't want 3 days away from her to mess up this part of our relationship, and I didn't want to be uncomfortable from stopping breast feeding while away, so I wanted to pump. Since breast milk is so great for babies I also wanted to bring this milk back with me from Europe so little one could have the benefit.

Question 1. Do all countries have such nice helpful policies as the TSA about allowing breast feeding mothers to carry on milk when travelling without their baby.

Answer - NO! I called the security helpdesk at Heathrow airport to check their policy and was met with confusion that anyone would want to do this. Oddly I think in some ways this is a good thing. In Europe maternity leave policies are much more generous. It's common for working mothers to get a year home with their babies. So that means there are many fewer working mothers who are still breast feeding - so many fewer who travel away from their little ones and need to travel home with the breast milk they have pumped but without a baby. The help desk had to call me back with the answer - which was that their policy of allowing reasonable amounts of milk for babies only applies if the baby is travelling with you. I could have the usual ziplock bag with small containers and that was that. Turns out my Medela bottles are 2.7 oz in size, and 6 of them will fit in the standard 1 quart ziplock (this still works in the UK where the limits are 100 ml bottles and a 1 litre bag). In three days away I pumped 8 Medela containers worth, so I packed 2 with ice in my checked bag and brought the rest along with me. That worked fine. I still think that the rules should be changed to mirror the helpful TSA policy change of August 4th 2008 - and in my copius spare time I will write the Heathrow security people a letter suggesting that.

Question 2. Can I bring breast milk through US customs?

Answer - YES! This I thought would be a big problem, but it turns out that breast milk is exempt from the normal rules on transport of food as you can find out at the helpful FAQ section of the US Customs and Boarder Protection website. Great news, and not at all what I expected. Way to go USCBP!!

I have to go to Australia next month for an observing trip, so you will be getting part two of International Travel soon. Will the Ozzies be more breast feeding friendly than the Brits. We'll find out!

Oh, and as a little extra note - Medela Pumps don't have plugs you can use in Europe. Luckily I have a friend with a US-UK converter I could borrow and I found this out by reading the info on the plug and not trying it out and frying something!