Welcome to this month's Carnival of Breastfeeding! This month's theme is breastfeeding goals. Be sure to check out what other bloggers have to say on this topic at the bottom of this post.
I have a whole lot of breastfeeding goals for this year. Some of them are:
Finish Spanish for Breastfeeding Support. Last week my co-author and I finished a final draft of a book which will help breastfeeding support people communicate with mothers in Spanish. It should be out by this summer, and I'm very excited to have reached this stage. I'm setting up a website for the book, which will have a 'how do I say this?' forum, extra exercises, and links to breastfeeding resources in Spanish. Here are a few audio clips from when we were recording the audio portion.
Recruit mothers for a breastfeeding/biopsy study. As I've mentioned before, I'm helping Dr. Kathleen Arcaro at the University of Massachusetts recruit mothers for an important study on breast cancer. If you know of a nursing mother who has recently had, or expecting to have, a biopsy, please ask them to contact me. I've set up a website for this and other studies using breastmilk.
Distribute pumps to WIC. As a result of some fundraising, my breastfeeding coalition recently purchased three pumps for area WIC offices. They'll loan them out to mothers who might not otherwise be able to afford to rent one.
Hold a breastpump training. My breastfeeding coalition is also planning to hold a training on breastpumps conducted by Medela in March. Email me if you'd like more information (use link on sidebar).
Get the word out about Massachusetts' new nursing in public law. I recently had 500 business cards printed with sections of our new law on nursing in public. Our coalition will distribute them, and I'll be trying to think of other ways to raise awareness of the new law.
Help get pumping rooms set up at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. For a while a group has been working on setting up pumping rooms at UMass. So far there is one, newly designated room, and we're hoping for many more. A list of other campus lactation programs is here.
Get trained to accept breastmilk donations. Our breastfeeding coalition has gotten a freezer set up to accept breastmilk donations (see thrilling picture to the left), and as soon as we get trained in how to operate our 'milk depot,' we'll start to receive and ship approved donors' milk to the Mothers' Milk Bank of New England.
Do more podcasts.
You gave me some great ideas for podcast topics last year, and I'm planning on doing them on tandem nursing, extended breastfeeding, sexual abuse and
breastfeeding, and breastfeeding and African American moms.
And finally, cut back a little! I'll be turning over the leadership of our coalition, as well as the responsibility of the newsletter for the Mothers' Milk Bank of New England. Here's the current newsletter.
Check out these posts from other bloggers participating in this months' carnival (updated throughout the day):
- Zen Mommy's 2009 breastfeeding resolutions
- Secrets of Orual's breastfeeding goals
- Hobo Mama's breastfeeding resolutions
- Breastfeeding 1-2-3 on the goal of exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months
- Blacktating's breastfeeding goals
- Milk Act's breastfeeding goals
- Beautiful Letdown's breastfeeding goals
- Mama Knows Breast's breastfeeding goals
- Breastfeeding Mums breastfeeding goals
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