Yes, I Know It’s World Breastfeeding Week

When these Breastfeeding Weeks come along, as they tend to do a few times a year depending on the country you’re living in, and the planet you are living on (Martians please note that planet Earth is having World Breastfeeding Week August 1-7), I feel huge pressure to contribute something super intelligent or meaningful. The thing is that lately what with the stress of moving and everything, I haven’t been feeling terribly inspired to create unique posts of art. Thanks a lot World Breastfeeding Week – your timing sucks! One of these days I’ll feel better and I will tell you all about “How ‘Mella’ Got her Groove Back.”

So what would I write about if I was feeling really superty-duperty Pollyanna-ish? (she says with a scary clown smile)

Well I’d definitely have a kick butt video to share with you for Ameda’s Why I Breastfeed campaign. Regardless of the fact my husband never wanted a video recorder on our computer and our real video camera broke a few years back (thus no vlogging for me!) Even though I won’t be counted, you, like Elita from Blacktating, can still contribute to this charitable campaign that for each 20 second video received will donate $5 to the Human Milk Banking Association of North America.

credit: My Baby Experts

I’d rant and rave about the fact that Shari Criso, the award winning author of the Simply Breastfeeding DVD has a brand new video website that will stream her entire Simply Breastfeeding DVD for FREE during World Breastfeeding Week. If you are unable to afford a breastfeeding class or Shari’s DVD, take advantage of this offer. I reviewed Simply Breastfeeding and highly recommend it to any new or seasoned mom who plans to breastfeed. Shari will help you commit to making it work! *If you know a friend who might benefit from Shari’s free video please share this with them via Facebook or twitter or email.

With World Breastfeeding Week comes concerned mothers who ask “what can I do to help?” Annie at PhD in Parenting has a good post to get you started. First, if you don’t already, start boycotting Nestlé. If you think that no longer buying Häagen-Dazs might ruin your life then you need to head over to her post Why I Boycott Nestlé’s Unethical Business Practices for an overview of how Nestlé ruins other people’s lives and make a full-on switch to Ben & Jerry’s like I did.

What else can you do? Well the theme of World breastfeeding Week this year is Just 10 Steps, the Baby-Friendly Way. If you live in British Columbia like I do, you may be just appalled as I am to learn that we only have two Baby-Friendly designated hospitals in our province. In Quesnel (huh?!) and Vancouver.  All together, in Canada there are only about a dozen hospitals that have this status. So like Best for Babes says, If you are expecting or thinking of starting a family, the single most important thing you can do, long before you go to the hospital or maternity center, give birth at home, or waltz the Ten Steps, is to PREPARE.

That means educate yourself, Prepare for hospital booby traps (most doctors and nurses receive little if any breastfeeding education. See this post and this post for more details), commit to breastfeeding, gather up a supportive network of other breastfeeding moms, friends and family. If you are isolated, that’s okay. There are plenty of places on-line you can turn to. Kelly Mom is my favorite resource, and even if you are calling long distance, there is always a La Leche League leader you can speak to for free about any breastfeeding problems you are having. If you already breastfeed, and if you can, plan to breastfeed a little longer than you intended, or give breastfeeding in public a try. The more often the public sees breastfeeding and/or sees or hears about breastfeeding older children, the more normal it becomes.

So yes, I know it is World Breastfeeding Week and this is my post. The other thing I am doing this week today, which I am pretty proud of myself about, is FINALLY getting around to posting a “Nestlé free zone” image on my site. I wonder how many of my readers were thinking I was a big Stouffer’s fan? …… Yeah right. And as a result of this post I hope your IQ has jumped a few points and that you are now inspired to become the world’s most influential breastfeeding educator. I will now softly creep into my bed in hopes of not disrupting my nursling’s sleep and can pretty much bet you a breastfeeding-friendly chocolate bar that I’ll be nursing my three year old within half an hour.

Happy Breastfeeding Week Breastfeeding Moms!

Tags: milk bank, Nestle, Simply Breastfeeding, World Breastfeeding Week 2010