Friends of Breastfeeding

Oh my! Oh my! Oh my! Friends of Breastfeeding have been busy little bees indeed and this year will be hosting the first (hopefully of many!) All About Baby Fair to take place this summer in Dublin.  The All About Baby Fair will offer local businesses the chance to showcase their products and services to new and expectant parents.

Who will be there you might ask?

Well, we will have some fantastic stalls for you to browse around on the day, some of these being:

• Aquababies
• Multimam
• Lansinoh
• Sudocrem
• Superhands Baby Sign Language
• Baby Massage
• Baby Wearing Ireland
• Kangaroo Babies
• Cast a Memory
• Earthmother
• Mumstown
• Irish Premature Babies
• Little Dress Up
• Piquant Baby
• Waterbabies
• Usbourne Books
• La Leche League Ireland
• Cuidíu Parenting Support
• Association of Lactation Consultants of Ireland
• Home Birth Association
• Mairead Murphy IBCLC                                                                                                              Mairead is a lactation consultant (I.B.C.L.C) and has breastfed her own 4 babies. She is now in private practice – offering breastfeeding preparation courses and one to one visits with moms and babies and is based in Dunboyne ,Co.Meath.
• Crafts for Kids
• Preloved Childrens and Maternity Items
• Bake stall with yummy home made goodies to take home

Go to http://allaboutbabyfair.wordpress.com/ to find out more about the fair and to keep up to date of all the latest happenings.  You can also jump right in and join the discussion on the facebook page http://www.facebook.com/AllAboutBabyFair2012  And if you want to be a REAL superstar…. feel free to print off and hang up one, two or several hundred of our posters!  new-posters-21

It’s shaping up to be a great day for all involved!

If you are interested in taking a stall at the All about Baby Fair 2012, please email Jolene at allaboutbaby@friendsofbreastfeeding.ie

Are you passionate about breastfeeding?  Do you want to help mothers in Ireland to have the Breastfeeding experience they desire? If so, Friends of Breastfeeding needs you!  Have a look below at the projects we are currently working on and see if anything there sticks out to you.  If you have read the information below and you want to get involved, but you still aren’t sure what might suit you, please feel free pop Chris an email at chair@friendsofbreastfeeding.ie or call on 087 9799908 for a chat

Breastfeeding Information packs
There have been a few drafts of our breastfeeding information pack at this point! Friends of Breastfeeding are participating in a Breastfeeding Resource Committee, lead by Siobhan Hourigan which is working on reviewing all breastfeeding-related literature. This means that our information pack, or anything along the same lines will be developed through that committee in future. We are hoping to print information packs to meet the information needs for 2012, and need help to develop this information. Most of the work for this project can be done online so location is not important and can be done at a time that suits you.  For more info contact Chris chair@friendsofbreastfeeding.ie

Buddy System
- We are working on establishing a buddy system, hopefully linking with the Maternity Hospitals where “Buddies” will call out to new mums to offer social support for breastfeeding. This would include a basic training, however it would not be as in depth as Cuidiu or La Leche League, because in the event of mums having problems, we would be referring them on to those services. The pilot for this project is likely to be happening in the Tallaght area of Dublin and we’re looking for a team to work on setting up the training as well as the system in general.  If this sounds like something that excites you or floats your boat, give Jolene a shout at enquiries@friendsofbreastfeeding.ie

Postcard campaign – Breastfeeding Friendly in the Workplace
We have printed up postcards and are organizing an email campaign, to be sent to different government ministers asking for breastfeeding breaks and facilities for working mothers to be extended until the child is age two in order to support recommendations by various international health bodies including the HSE and the WHO.   Now all we need are a great group of motivated people to take part in a team to get this moving nationally.  For more information or to take part in the planning of this project, please contact Chris at chair@friendsofbreastfeeding.ie

Breastfeeding Friendly Initiative
This involves getting restaurants/cafes etc to display our BFI stickers and listing them on our website as breastfeeding-friendly. We also hope to branch out and blitz shopping centres to designate them breastfeeding-friendly, including putting some mother friendly touches to their feeding room if they have one and other changes. We are looking for people all across the country to get involved in a team to manage all of this.  For more information, please contact Maria at
bfi@friendsofbreastfeeding.ie

Breastfeeding Policy Influence
- We are regularly asked to make submissions for various policies which impact on breastfeeding such as the National Children’s Strategy for the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland policy on their Children’s Commercial Communications Code to name a couple. We need people to put together these submissions and/or proof and work with others to tweak and finalise what will represent Friends of Breastfeeding in these matters.  If this sounds like something you’d be interested, please contact us at chair@friendsofbreastfeeding.ie

Newsletter
Do you have a way with words and an interest in the world of nursing? Are you interested in writing for the Friends of Breastfeeding Newsletter, “Booby Mail?” Do you have ideas on what you’d like to see read in the newsletter?  Are you a mother with a breastfeeding story to share?  Or maybe there’s a breastfeeding professional or support person that you’d like to nominate as our featured individual in our “Focus on support.” If so, we’d love to hear from you!  contact newsletter@friendsofbreastfeeding.ie