Ten breastfeeding promotion ideas

This page includes a guide to ten breastfeeding promotion activities common to local breastfeeding coalitions and community-based organizations. They are offered to simply share some ideas of what other coalitions have accomplished or things to consider when charting your own course. Have fun with it and follow the impulse of your coalition members and your community's needs.

Readiness: If your coalition has a group identity, ground rules for participation, data about local breastfeeding rates, and an understanding to the local barriers to breastfeeding, then it is time to consider achievable, appropriate actions for the group to do together.

Motivation: Group activities on any scale (from posting a bulletin board to hosting a press conference) are very rewarding. They help coalition members learn how to work together and share the joy of seeing the tangible results of their efforts.

Avoid over-reaching: Few coalitions have a problem seeing what needs to be done in their community, but many have a problem keeping their activities do-able and achievable given constraints of time and funding. Be mindful to not over-commit.

Value of documentation: Whatever you and your coalition do, be sure to keep careful notes and create a roadmap for the future.

1. Access to prenatal breastfeeding education

2. Equal access to breastfeeding support for every woman

3. Professional support: continuing education for LC and MD

4. Closing the gap on racial and ethnic disparities

5. Early post-partum care

6. Recruiting men to your breastfeeding coalition

7. World Breastfeeding Week promotion activities

8. Clear leadership for employer accommodation

9. Create a media and political watch committee

10. A plan for media promotion of breastfeeding and your group

Activity 1: Access To Prenatal Breastfeeding Education

Introduction: Access to prenatal breastfeeding education is critical. It offers a solid knowledge base of skills and information to give new mothers the best start to breastfeeding. A thorough breastfeeding curriculum will include risks of not breastfeeding, common breastfeeding challenges, when to seek help, and how to talk to family members and employers about the importance of breastfeeding.

Goal: All families in Oregon will possess the skills and resources to breastfeed.

Recommended Actions:

Find the teachable moment. For example, one creative organization went to a low income housing development occupied primarily by African Americans, and recruited grandmothers who were supportive of breastfeeding and trained them as peer counselors. The grandmothers were then provided gifts and party foods to host baby showers for expectant mothers. The party theme was encouragement of breastfeeding, which was echoed in the stories, gifts, and support presented by the elders.
Curriculum development

If a more traditional class model is the goal, locate materials already produced and adapt them. Check local WIC and childbirth educators, or find ways to support what those people are already doing.

One of the most important resources the class will provide is a community resource list showing where the participant can get after hours help, emergency help, and low cost or free breastpumps.

Location

Where possible, partner with organizations serving target populations and bring the curriculum to them.

Teachers

Technical lactation components can be taught by hospital, community or WIC LC;
Trained Peer Counselors with LC support can be teachers
Staff from partner organizations serving target populations can be trained to integrate lactation training in their curriculum (example: Head Start or teen parent programs).

Students

Program participants in community partner organizations
Advertise availability of classes in libraries, childbirth educators, OB and midwifery clinics, and other likely places.

Funding

When the classes are taught by volunteers, the price to produce a prenatal breastfeeding class is quite minimal.
Many communities have space available for free health classes.
Print costs are the primary expense.
Take all means possible to not defer this cost to the students. A fee for the class can be a barrier for many.

Food

Having food at the training has several advantages.
Healthy snacks and water create a teaching opportunity, and support the pregnant mothers.
Food increases attention span and likelihood for attendance, particularly if the class is in the evening.
Many restaurants are willing to make donations, and many school cafeterias double as low cost catering services.

Evaluation:

At a minimum, track the number of students taught.

Through follow up surveying, track the breastfeeding initiation and duration rates of prenatal class graduates and compare to general population.

Activity 2: Equal Access To Breastfeeding Support For Every Woman

Introduction: Access to breastfeeding support is not equal. There are many women without support from family or friends who have the additional barrier of lack of access to lactation support. Without WIC, OHP, or funds to pay for a home lactation consultation visit, many women do not get the help they need when they need it.

Goal: The goal is to never have to say no to a woman who needs breastfeeding help. What can be done in your community to make this so?

Recommended Actions: Some solutions for other communities have included:

Starting or promoting a LLL group;
Offering a breastfeeding warm line staffed by peer counselors or on rotation by qualified coalition members;
Creating a directory which includes all sliding scale help available from hospital lactation departments, midwives, postpartum doulas;
Applying for grant funds to pay for home visits for these women;
Starting an LC co-op to share the burden of low cost appointments.
If language barriers are a problem, see if interpreter services can be paid for by referring provider. For example, can the mother's birthing hospital provide an interpreter for a peer counselor call?

Evaluation:

Track the number of calls, groups, etc. using the services.
Ask if the help provided was useful to her, clear, or would in her opinion help her to continue to breastfeed.

Activity 3: Professional Support For Lactation Consultants And Physicians

Introduction: It can be difficult, particularly in rural areas, to find opportunities for professional development in lactation specialties. At a minimum, breastfeeding coalitions can function as a time to share case studies, reflect on books or new research, promote or create new resources, etc.

Goal: Increase lactation literacy for area health care professionals.

Recommended Actions:

See the Health Care Provider section of this website.
Recruit a breastfeeding savvy physician to co-host Lactation Grand Rounds. This can be a great way to educate other physicians as well as increase visibility and legitimacy of lactation services available.
The Breastfeeding Coalition of Washington has a Physician Education Lactation Collaborative which will be released soon.
Create a quarterly newsletter for professionals. Include new studies related to breastfeeding, relevant articles, information about your group or community services, and stories of local moms who overcome barriers. Production on email will make distribution free. Never lose the opportunity to promote your services or your principles.
Having a breastfeeding expert speak at a conference is not an easy deliverable, but collaboration with a local hospital can help you achieve this goal. For example, The Breastfeeding Task Force of Los Angeles has a successful Grand Rounds program, which moves quarterly to new hospitals. Hosting hospitals provide the space, food and presenters equipment, in exchange their staff can attend for free or reduced cost.
Fundraise to send members of your group to larger conferences. Promote the possibility that attendees will lecture locally to share the information gleaned.

Evaluation: Obviously, the mechanism for evaluation will be dependent on the action taken. Remember that with any effort it can be helpful to get feedback from not only audience participants, but also your speakers, logistics team and colleagues. It will help you refine the process.

If your chosen action is a newsletter, after a year invite evaluation by your list serve. For example: Was the lactation newsletter helpful? Do you understand who our coalition is?

Activity 4: Closing The Gap On Racial And Ethnic Disparities

Introduction: There are large racial, ethnic, socio-economic and age disparities in US breastfeeding rates. For example, the US breastfeeding initiation rate is 69.5%, and six month (non-exclusive) duration rate is 33%. The African-American breastfeeding 6 month rate is only 16%. Accordingly, the illness, disease, and infant mortality rates for this population is higher than the general population. This is needless suffering from preventable causes. Six months exclusive breastfeeding is the goal.

Goal: Promote breastfeeding to all populations, break down the myth that a group of people not currently breastfeeding won't or can't in the future. Educate yourself on the barriers to breastfeeding both for the general population, and the cultural-specific barriers. The economic need to return to work, often shortly after birth, presents many daunting barriers.

Oregon mothers have some new help, however:

The Oregon Technical Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which provides the states welfare-to-work training, is now breastfeeding friendly.
Oregon Rest Breaks for Breast Milk Expression law mandates that the majority of employers accommodate breastfeeding mothers with space and time to express milk.
See the Employer section of this website and Activity 8 below for more ideas about educating employers.

Recommended Actions:

If you are not from the target populations and/or do not work in an environment which serves target populations, then it will be necessary to do significant, sincere, and consistent outreach efforts.

Educate yourself. See the extensive writings on culture and breastfeeding by Cynthia Good Mojab, MS clinical psychology, IBCLC, RLC posted at the Ammawell website. The articles: The Cultural Art of Breastfeeding and Helping Mothers Create Breastfeeding Allies would be of particular interest.
Identify community organizations already working with the target populations, and develop relationships with them.
Volunteer for their board or work groups.
Financially contribute to their initiatives when possible or promote them to your contacts.
Offer free breastfeeding counseling training to their staff.
Offer free peer counselor training to their program participants.
Invite both staff and program participants to be work group and advisory committee members in your breastfeeding coalition. Make it clear that you are willing to contribute to their work groups before asking for them to contribute to yours.
Be humble. Be open. Be willing to learn from others. Learn about cultural differences of perception and practice with regard to breastfeeding and be respectful of the person and any experiences they are willing to share. It will take time to build trust. Be patient. Remember you may be the breastfeeding expert, but if for example, you are not Romanian, you are not an expert about being Romanian and breastfeeding in America.
Sometimes the training you offer will not result in the person you trained wanting to continue to work with you. Trust that their investment in learning lactation promotion and support was sincere, and that it will live on in a meaningful, culturally-appropriate way in their community.

Evaluation:

Continue mentoring relationships within diverse communities. If a person you were grooming for a peer counselor program, for example, does not become a peer counselor for your program, try to get feedback on what would make it a more comfortable environment for them. Would they be willing to be a trainer next time?
Cultural sensitivity, awareness and integration is very complex and subtle, and nearly impossible to evaluate. Hopefully, through good local outreach, advocacy, and education, the breastfeeding disparities across racial and ethnic lines will change over time.

Activity 5: Initiate Peer Counselor Training Or Peer Support Group

Introduction: Research has shown that help from another mother who has breastfed can have greater impact on a womans decision to breastfeed and her success at breastfeeding than physician advice or handout materials.

Perhaps this is why National WIC has created the Loving Support Makes Breastfeeding Work peer counselor training program. Through this training, WIC offices have clear instruction, guidelines and teaching materials available to offer consistent training to peer counselors across the country.

If you are working on building a community breastfeeding coalition and are outside the WIC program, partnering with WIC and utilizing these resources can be helpful.

Goal: Training peer counselors to help other moms, allows them to build on their own breastfeeding experience. This can be an effective way to boost breastfeeding rates in your community. Peer counselors are often willing to be available outside standard business hours. This provides moms with the help they need when they need it.

Incorporating prenatal education into the program establishes a relationship that will be critical in the challenging days immediately after the baby is born.

Recommended Actions:

Recruit diverse peer counselors, including age diversity.
Make sure that whatever training model you use has a strong peer counseling skills emphasis. Good listening and motivational interviewing are learned arts.
Remember that peer counseling works because it includes empathy as well as advice. Any education program needs to find ways to keep the heart while still training the mind.
Offer some form of continuing education.
Invite peer counselors to participate in your coalition. They have the potential to speak for moms in the community.
Remember to praise the peer counselor for her insight, empathy, compassion, and dedication to herself, her own children, and the mothers she helps.
Remember, April is volunteer appreciation month.

Evaluation:

Track the numbers of women who become peer counselors through your program.
Keep call logs or other records of the assistance the peer counselors provide.

Activity 6: Recruiting Men To Your Coalition

Introduction: This can be the tough one! Many breastfeeding coalitions find that getting dads or even male health care providers to participate in the coalition is a challenge, but it is vital to try!

Goal: Male involvement in the coalition can help your members understand how to best support and educate fathers about breastfeeding.

Recommended Actions:

Create handout materials specifically for the dad or the family. Let dads know specific ways to bond with the baby even if not feeding the baby.
The Oregon Dept of Human Services, Office of Family Health has designed a thank you card for dads, written from the babys perspective. Hand them out to clients.
In the process of identifying and collaborating with community organizations, note which ones have Male Involvement Specialists. If you find these men, ask for an appointment to talk to them about breastfeeding and ways they can incorporate breastfeeding support and awareness into their work with fathers.
LLL of Oregon includes father panels at their conferences. This is a time for recruited dads to speak to the assembled group about why and how they support their partners, or support people in their larger community about breastfeeding. It can also be a time for them to give feedback to lactation consultants about how they want to be spoken to or included. Be sure to celebrate their contribution to the event.
Identify and invite the participation of male pediatricians, naturopaths, or other likely interested parties to the coalition.

Evaluation: If you've looked a dad in the eye and told him he's an important, valued part of making breastfeeding work, you're doing great. Successfully recruiting a dad to serve on your coalition earns you Lactation Outreach Queen status.

Activity 7: World Breastfeeding Week Promotion Activities

Introduction: The World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) selects and promotes annual global themes for honoring and celebrating World Breastfeeding Week (WBW). WBW is generally the first week of August.

Note: In Oregon, by Governors Proclamation, we have a Breastfeeding Promotion Month. For 2008, Oregon is experimenting with proclaiming September as Breastfeeding Promotion Month, in response to the observation that its easier to plan and attend events in the fall, rather than the busy months of summer.

Goal: Raise global awareness of the importance of exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life, and continued breastfeeding as long thereafter as mom and baby mutually desire. The World Health Organization recommends a minimum of two years breastfeeding, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a minimum of one year.

Recommended Actions:

There are countless creative ways to celebrate WBW in your community. Some outstanding examples have included:
The Breastfeeding Coalition of Washington has free or low-cost WBW promotion ideas on their website.
WBW information and activity booths at farmers markets or county fairs
Rock and Relax breastfeeding shelters for moms at fairs or festivals
Local LLL chapters often host World Breastfeeding Walks
Create and distribute breastfeeding-friendly hospital discharge bags as an alternative to the typical bags paid for by artificial formula companies and laden with their products often including a formula sample or two! See Ban the Bags for more info. Breastfeeding-friendly products can include water bottles, promotional magnets or pens for WIC or your coalition, coupons to baby friendly restaurants, handouts on the Breastfeeding Family, and hospital evaluation postcards.
Breastfeeding plays or skits in public venues using comedy as a teaching tool.
Media events. (For more information see Activity 9: Media Promotion or the Media section of this website)

Evaluation:

For many breastfeeding coalitions, WBW events will be an annual affair. Even if your action is one where it is not possible to measure impact, be sure to collect feedback from the participating members of your coalition, learning what worked well for them or what they would do differently next time. Keep these records to build on your success the following year.

Activity 8: Clear Leadership For Employer Accommodation

Introduction: Many mothers return to work out of economic necessity soon after the baby is born. Other mothers return to work by choice. In either case, this separation of mom and baby can be a barrier to breastfeeding if the workplace is not accommodating.

Accommodating a breastfeeding mother in the workplace is not difficult. With a flexible break schedule, a quality breastpump and a clean private place to pump, a mother can be successful!

Only a handful of states mandate employer accommodation for breastfeeding mothers. In 2007, the Oregon legislature passed an employer mandate called the Rest Breaks for Breastmilk Expression law.

Goal: Assist employers in adopting Breastfeeding Mother Friendly policies.

Recommended Actions:

Take the Business Case for Breastfeeding Toolkit training to be ready to share materials and offer technical assistance to employers in your area.
If you are in a WIC clinic or are a health care provider let your clients and patients know that breastfeeding is too important to let return to work or school barriers stand in the way. Let them know you care and will do your part to advocate for them.
Help mothers brainstorm on techniques for talking to her employer, preferably before she starts maternity leave. Help her find access to a breastpump as well as instructions for use, cleaning, milk storage and collection.
Both the Oregon Dept of Human Services, Office on Family Health and the Breastfeeding Coalition of Washington have employer packets to educate employers on easy steps to breastfeeding accommodation. Click on the links to place your order.
Become familiar with statistics showing the cost-benefit to employers for supporting breastfeeding.
Target certain employers in your community, based on number of employees, demographic of employees, or just because you have an "in". Ask for time to speak with the HR department about the cost benefits to the company for creating breastfeeding-friendly policies.
Send thank you notes or give public awards to employers who support breastfeeding mothers. See employer recognition.
Research what is available in your area to collect reports of moms struggling with breastfeeding after return to work. If no resource exists, create one.
Help us build a database. of successful pump strategies, particularly for non-office settings.
If employer accommodation for breastfeeding mothers is important to you, consider becoming politically active to assist legislative efforts around the issue.

Evaluation: Keep track of employer packets, HR department connections and other proactive positive steps you are taking. You can help make the case for workplace accommodation legislative efforts in Oregon and across the country if you track any and all specific incidents of mothers having difficulty expressing breastmilk or breastfeeding on the job, as well as those who are successful.

Activity 9: Media Watch

Introduction: Breastfeeding is one of many dynamic sectors of life where the private meets the political. Breastfeeding requires personal and public activism. Note positive breastfeeding stories and as well as negative ones and be responsive to your media.

Goal: Let the media know that you are paying attention to their ways and means of portraying breastfeeding, that you care whether they get the story right and will not hesitate to add your voice.

Recommended Actions:

Designate at least one person in the coalition to be alert to all media. Use the internet to search each week for current stories.
Remember there is always a local angle. See Activity 10: Media Promotion to see how to use the news to your advantage.
Your coalition needs a spokesperson that is comfortable working with the media and adept at speaking in sound bites. Designate a local, articulate, active member to be ready to help the media interpret a national or local story. If you can, recruit a physician who can be available for these purposes.
If the story is local in focus, your coalition needs to respond immediately. At a minimum, write a letter and have coalition members sign it. Ultimately, have a plan in place: someone to write a letter, a designated spokesperson, moms or experts available for interview, etc.
As the value of breastfeeding becomes better known, moms in many communities are becoming more responsive. Nurse-ins often given a lot of press. While these activities might not be formally endorsed or supported by your coalition, it is a great opportunity to monitor the tone of the community and get your spokesperson involved.

Evaluation: Keep a record of any incident where your coalitions response to the media is reported by the media. If your Letter to the Editor is printed, clip it and celebrate!

Activity 10: Plan For Media Promotion For Breastfeeding and Your Group

Introduction: Media might not be your forte, but it is worthwhile to learn effective use of the media to promote breastfeeding and the services or concerns of your coalition. Review the Social Ecological Framework and note that Media is the sphere of influence that wraps around us all. If your breastfeeding coalition has influence on the media, you will have a huge impact.

Goal: Get breastfeeding into the public conversation. Promote and support breastfeeding as the biologically normal, healthy, sound practice for maternal and child health.

Recommended Actions:

Learn to write a press release, and localize breastfeeding stories in the news. New developments and research in the field are opportunities to promote your group and Mission. Several press releases are posted in the media section of this website.
Always look for the unique angle; the media loves an exclusive story
Maintain a current media contact list, or have a connection with PR resources.
Note and thank all reporters who take the time to cover breastfeeding, even if you did not care for the coverage. This is the idea that "no press is bad press".
Call certain reporters before you widely distribute a press release and offer them exclusive interviews to moms or experts. Court these relationships and support the reporter in considering you an expert and resource for future breastfeeding stories.
Consider creating media events such as an award ceremony for breastfeeding-friendly employers, or a graduation ceremony for breastfeeding peer counselors. World Breastfeeding Week can be an excellent time to host a Mothers Milk and Tea and invite the media to talk to moms about their breastfeeding experiences.
Give the media awards for positive breastfeeding images and stories. Chances are they will cover the story of their success, thus yielding more coverage.
Join any media associations in your area. There might be a fee to do so, but the personal connections are priceless.

Evaluation: Any press is a huge success! Keep all your clippings and videos with any pertinent notes about how you got the interview and what came from it. As always, make a roadmap for the person who comes after you.