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Today through Thursday is World Breastfeeding Week. In observance of the Olympics taking place this month in China, the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action is pushing what the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services calls the "gold standard" for infant feeding: breastfeeding exclusively for six months, followed by mixing breastfeeding with other, complementary food until the child is 2.

Breastfeeding a child until he or she can ask for it by name might not be common in the U.S. (although one woman I know did it until her daughter was about 2, toward the end of which time the girl would demand "Boobie!" not only at home but also in public places). There are a lot of reasons for that, ranging from Mom's work schedule to the problem of needing to breastfeed in public places.

But it is common in many other cultures, and it's undeniably good for the baby. As HHS says in its news release, "Breastfeeding is the normal and optimal food source for babies. Human milk meets all of the needs of babies’ rapidly developing brains and bodies. It provides an ideal balance of nutrients and a high degree of natural immunity against infection, and reduces the risk of allergies, diabetes, obesity, SIDS and environmental pollutants. Breastfeeding contributes to healthy growth, psychosocial and intellectual development, and an overall healthy lifestyle."

Yet another reason to do it? It's good for Mom as well, reducing her chances of developing breast and ovarian cancer, postpartum depression and Type 2 diabetes. Plus, it's free. (HHS also says it's environmentally safe, although anyone who has ever had to change a diaper knows that no food for baby is completely environmentally safe.)

The state also has a Web site for more information about breastfeeding.

The Olympics tie-in is a bit of a reach, but the goal is to get healthier moms and kids through a process known to work.

The Partnership for a Drug-Free America and the Partnership for a Drug-Free NC have joined in a (duh) partnership to create a Web site to help parents communicate with their teens, particularly about alcohol and drug abuse.

The site is called A Parent's Guide to the Teen Brain and you can visit it at www.drugfree.org/teenbrain. It has all manner of information about brain development, how to talk with your kids about drugs and alcohol and other subjects. (Parent site drugfree.org also has a lot of info about alcohol and drug abuse) Check it out.

After my story Saturday on how Greensboro Day staffers saved eighth-grader Chris Dalldorf's life with a portable defibrillator, I got several e-mails, including some containing information I thought merited wider distribution.

Dr. Michael Simmons, who was quoted in the story, wrote to stress the need to have portable defibrillators in all schools. Potentially fatal heart problems are no respecter of age, and some genetically-based heart problems have surfaced in otherwise healthy kids even younger than Chris (who turns 15 in April). The Guilford County Schools have devices in all high schools and middle schools, but relatively few elementary schools have them at this point. One angle from Greensboro Day that I didn't have room to include in my print story was that faculty/staff there bought devices with money forfeited from people's health-care reimbursement accounts -- money that was paid in but never pulled back out to pay health expenses. Linda Sudnik, the school nurse, urges people to think creatively about how these purchases might be paid for, and she's speaking from experience on that.

Joe Mullins e-mailed to point out that Jon Schner, the school director of sports medicine who was instrumental in reviving Chris, is a certified athletic trainer who is licensed by the state of North Carolina. He thinks it's a good idea to have at least one such licensed professional on the staffs of all secondary schools, although North Carolina does not currently require that.

Finally, I heard today from Shellie Wenhold, who used to live in Greensboro with her family before moving to Georgia in 2004. In October 2004, her son Jonathan, who had attended Jesse Wharton Elementary here, went into sudden cardiac arrest at his school in Georgia. The school did not have a defibrillator, and paramedics arrived with one roughly 10 to 12 minutes after Jonathan's collapse -- too late to prevent brain damage from loss of oxygen. Jonathan died after eight days in the hospital.

Ms. Wenhold wanted to make people aware of two organizations whose work falls into this area.

The Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndromes Foundation seeks to prevent sudden death due to heart abnormalities and to support families who have lost a member to this disorder.

Parent Heart Watch is a national network of families who either have lost a child to sudden cardiac arrest or who have children at known risk for it. It keeps databases of children who have died because of sudden cardiac arrest and of children who suffered it but were saved.

Ms. Wenhold has been active in this area since losing her son. She and others even helped obtain a portable defibrillator for Jonathan's former school, Jesse Wharton.

If there's a lesson to be taken away from her sad story and what happened to Chris Dalldorf, it's that we need portable defibrillators in more places and we need more people trained in how to use them. (Schner and Sudnik demonstrated it for me -- it looks so easy even a klutz like me could do it.) Training in cardiopulmonary resuscitation also remains crucial. Schner estimates that only 4 to 6 percent of North Carolinians are trained in CPR. If I or one of my children went into sudden cardiac arrest, I'd prefer the odds be much, much higher.

UPDATE: Today (April 1) the New England Journal of Medicine publishes both a paper and an editorial about the potential benefits of having a portable defibrillator at home. Research showed no statistically significant benefit, and the editorial notes, "As usual, marketing of such devices is charging far ahead of science." The study and editorial did not address the potential benefits of having such devices in public places.

UPDATE: Welcome to all the visitors from Instapundit. Please make yourselves at home.

One thing my story today on infant mortality in North Carolina didn't get into was how the U.S. stacks up against comparable nations. I ran out of time and room, and the report that prompted the story focused on North Carolina, not other states or the nation as a whole.

Problem is, well, there's a problem. The United Health Foundation ranks the U.S. 26th out of 30 industrialized nations in terms of infant mortality. There are a lot of reasons why that might be, of course -- race and class issues, poor lifestyle choices, the lack of national prenatal care and so forth. As a newcomer to covering health, I find it odd that on the national level and in the South, infant mortality doesn't appear to be a particularly high priority in terms of fund-raising and prevention.

P.S.: It looks like I can post but comments aren't showing up. They're working on it. Thanks for your patience.