63-Dr. Shelley McGuire: FCS and COVID Research on Breastfeeding Babies

<p>• At the University of Idaho, were the oldest department at the university, and we were the first Home Program in the West, and we're still going strong. Almost 125 years later, and we're a one-stop shop for Family and Consumer Sciences, we have degrees in apparel, textile and design, we have a couple degrees in nutrition, one leads to dietetics career, the other one leads to medical school or the likes. We have a human development, family studies program, and we have a child development program and another program, early childhood education, so you're certified to teach through third grade. (1:50)</p><p>• They have, I think, very minimal teacher preparation programs when it comes to Family Consumer Sciences educators or education programs, there's a huge push in Illinois, Texas, South Dakota, Nebraska, and here in Washington and Idaho. We have these hot spots for Family Consumer Sciences education and the teacher preparation program in what you're talking about, but we need more of these programs because it's the vitality and the longevity for our legacy. (4:49)</p><p>• This has probably been the most difficult and important study that we've ever done, and I think like everybody else, when the pandemic hit, we all wanted to do something. It's like, Well, what can we do to help? And everybody wanted to help and people who knew how to sew made masks, you did what you knew how to do to help your fellow human being, right? Well, I studied breastfeeding and I study breastfeeding with my husband, actually, he's my partner in crime, Mark McGuire at the University of Idaho. In our research group, and this is what we study, so I think it wasn't a big surprise that we had this immediate idea when this pandemic started, we wondered if the virus could be transmitted from the mother to the baby via breastfeeding. (7:52)</p><p>• COVID-infected moms from across the country who were so passionate about helping us get the information that they were willing to be in a study for us. And we shipped them milk collection supplies