The People Who Make My Baby Friendly Community

Welcome to The Breastfeeding Cafe Carnival!

This post was written as part of The Breastfeeding Cafe’s Carnival. For more info on the Breastfeeding Cafe, go to www.breastfeedingcafe.wordpress.com. For more info on the Carnival or if you want to participate, contact Claire at clindstrom2 {at} gmail {dot} com. Today’s post is about baby friendly communities. Please read the other blogs in today’s carnival listed below and check back for more posts July 18th through the 31st!

When I think of Baby Friendly Communities I think of strong community role models. In my community, which has one of the highest breastfeeding rates in our province with a 97% initiation rate, I think of the public health nurses who hold the annual Breastfeeding Challenge and hold the annual breastfeeding photo contest. I think of our amazing local midwives who make sure their moms are breastfeeding successfully before they leave them and then visit them at home to make sure it stays that way. I think of our local OB/GYN who works with moms instead of following her own agenda. I think of our local La Leche League chapter who helped make me who I am.

To start, I can’t speak for local doctors because I don’t know any of them. My GP is in the city and did not see me throughout my pregnancies except in the very begining when I found out I was pregnant. I sheepishly told her I wanted a midwife-assisted birth and she told me she didn’t even do obstetrics and encouraged me to have a midwife!

The midwives. Not only did I learn more about pregnancy and birth and the wonderous powers of my body than I ever thought was possible, I formed an intimate bond with my midwives. They came on my birth journey with us. They were the coaches on our team who helped me reach my birthing goals. And when I got drafted into motherhood they stayed with me. They crammed my brain full of breastfeeding and mothering wisdom, and once they had given me all they could they let me go. And it wasn’t just me. It wasn’t just my bond with them. Everyone I know who has had them has said the same thing. Those women change other women’s lives. They make this community of mothers wise, strong and powerful.

The OB/GYN. We are fortunate to have a highly respected and skilled OB/GYN in our community. Not only is she a woman, she has an excellent working relationship with the local midwives. In fact, having seen her for a consultation and then having her deliver my first baby via c-section, I can honestly say that she was everything I would want an OB/GYN to be. She was friendly and interested in me as a person, she informed me of my choices, she respected my opinions, decisions, and requests, and she did a good job of my surgery. Later for my second pregnancy when there was a discussion about my needing some medication in the third trimester, she respected that I was breastfeeding a two year old and worked with me to find the best medical solution. When your midwives have a friend in the medical community you know you’re in good hands.

The public health nurses. Our public health unit has mom and baby groups led by a Lactation Consultant. I didn’t learn that about her until only recently because it’s not the hat she wears as the group facilitator, but it is no surprise that she is a breastfeeding advocate and one of my favorite local breastfeeding allies. The information and encouragement she and the other nurses bestow to new moms is top notch. I remember at one group a new mom announced she was not breastfeeding her new baby and started talking nonsense about formula. At the break a nurse who’d been quietly informed of this came into the group and gently took this new mom aside to give her the facts about formula and breastfeeding and present her with informed choices. I was in awe of the how this nurse balanced graceful respect and confident assertiveness. I thought “If this is how they always do things, no wonder we’re doing so well.”

La Leche League. I found my local LLL when my first born was 3 months old. I joined because I wanted to breastfeed longer than standard, but I felt like I needed more support for my choice to do so. I cannot tell you how much I learned going to those weekly meetings! Honestly, those women are responsible for giving me the information about breastfeeding that turned me into a passionate lactivist and breastfeeding blogger.

The Online Community. Even though an online community isn’t the same as one’s local community, for an individual, it can be the best community of all. I love my breastfeeding bloggy and twitter friends. The support and like-minded and like-acted doings of this crowd have kept me breastfeeding even longer than I thought I would be. The continued cornucopia of information and shared experiences from different people every week really gives me that sense of a global community. No, it isn’t just me and a few of my local friends who think this way and do things this way. There are so so so many of us, and we are constantly teaching each other and reminding each other of why we do what we do and believe what we believe in.

Being a breastfeeding blogger has given me new friends, new insights and revelations, new books to read and new experiences. In fact, you can join me for another one tomorrow as I am a guest on Karen Angstadt’s A Labor of Love radio show online where we will be talking about nursing toddlers and the things we didn’t know in advance. Remember that guest post she did for me a few weeks ago Questions For You About Nursing Your Toddler? Well, we’re going to dissect some of your comments so make sure you listen in on Monday at 1 PM EST.

• Emily @ Baby Dickey—Living in a baby friendly community
• Sara @ The Covered Wagon—A Baby-Friendly Worship Community
• Shary @ Mama Fish—A Community Fit For All Babies
• Sylko @ Chaotic Mama—Breastfeeding Carnival: Baby Friendly Community
• Claire @ The Adventures of Lactating Girl—Community is What You Make of It
• Kimberly @ Fertility Flower—Baby Friendly Maternity Leave
• Melodie @ Breastfeeding Moms Unite!—The People Who Make My Baby Friendly Community
• Timbra @ Bosoms and Babes—Baby Friendly Community: Carnival Day 1
• Claire @ Geeky Gaming Mama—Baby Friendly Community: What It Means To Me
• Renee @ Just the 5 of us!—Baby friendly, one baby at a time

Related posts:

1. A Very Breastfeeding Friendly Vancouver Island Baby Fair
2. Support for Breastfeeding Can Make All The Difference
3. Making Airlines Breastfeeding Friendly
4. Why I Love The Real Food Community
5. Have You Ever Wanted To Nurse Someone Else’s Baby?

Tags: baby friendly community