Healthy Bakersfield: The Breastfeeding Connection
Tying it all together
We’re so glad to have you here and we hope you’re ready for what we’ve got planned!
First, welcome and thank you for subscribing!
Today is Giving Tuesday, and we want you to know exactly what we do so that you may consider making a donation to us.
Here’s EXACTLY why you should donate to Baby Café Bakersfield for #GivingTuesday: We Fill The Gap. Too many families in Bakersfield and Kern County struggle with breastfeeding and pumping, and they need access to high-quality, affordable lactation care. We make it free, and we make it accessible to all. Our staff are all volunteers and all highly trained and experienced. Your donations fund our operating expenses and make it possible for us to provide this service to the community. We are honored to be able to help local families with all of their lactation needs, from questions to concerns to complex lactation scenarios.
Many people (understandably!) assume that everyone gets all the lactation care & education they need from the hospital when they give birth and/or from their baby’s doctor. Unfortunately, that’s often not enough.
Sure, breastfeeding and lactation are “natural,” but that does not mean they are easy to learn. Most new mothers and parents need a lot of education as well as a lot of ongoing support when they have a baby. Hospitals and doctors’ offices are not positioned well to do that.
Breastfeeding is important. We can’t say it’s “beneficial” or has “advantages” because it is the biological norm for all mammals.
Though many may treat it as expendable, it is not.
Even if it weren’t biologically important, here’s the thing: most mothers actually want to breastfeed their babies, and in fact, most start out doing so. They deserve to have the information and assistance they need to meet that goal.
Data show that a vast majority of mothers intend to breastfeed when their babies are born.
It’s what happens hours, days, weeks, or months later which determines how much breastfeeding gets done. Supported mothers breastfeed longer, and those who stop feeding at the breast have the information they need to continue expressing their milk and feeding it to baby longer.
This matters a lot. Human milk is the nutritional foundation for a person’s entire lifetime, and it contains live, active components that strengthen a baby’s immune system - these are not things that are available from infant formula.
Breastfeeding matters. When babies are breastfed for at least 2 months, it reduces their risk of SIDS by half. That is a huge risk reduction.
This is the whole reason we do what we do here at Baby Café Bakersfield. We make breastfeeding and feeding human milk possible for folks who might not otherwise be able to sustain it. We do that by providing free, accessible, professional lactation care to all families in Kern County.
We hope you will be able to make a donation to Baby Café Bakersfield this Giving Tuesday or anytime you feel able.
Click here to donate through PayPal.
If you prefer, you can donate using Zelle in your banking app.
