When breastfeeding her son Anakin, local mom Ashley Becklund is usually on the lookout for the stink eye.
“If you look for it, it’s there. The looks are always there,” laughed the local mom, who was on-hand with Anakin for a flag raising to kick off National Breastfeeding Week in Barrie on Monday at City Hall. “But if you keep an open mind and just know that it’s OK and you’re not doing anything wrong, than you sort of disregard those little hidden gestures that people have for you.”
Local dignitaries, the mayor, the health unit and local moms including Becklund came together Monday afternoon to raise a flag to celebrate the kick off of National Breastfeeding Week from Oct. 1 to 7, aiming to raise awareness of the importance of breastfeeding and strong support systems.
There was also a flag raising in Bradford West Gwillimbury on Tuesday.
Sonya Hamilton, a public health nurse with the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit, co-ordinates the Bradford Breastfeeding Place at the BWG Public Library, a drop-in for mom-to-mom breastfeeding support and information. The group meets every Thursday from 1-2:30 p.m. in the Green Room.
“It’s really a great partnership we have with the library,” Hamilton said, although there is still more to be done to encourage acceptance of breastfeeding “anytime, anywhere.”
Awareness is growing, more locations display a breastfeeding welcome sign – but, she said, “we certainly do hear stories.”
Becklund said that while she personally hasn’t been told outright to stop breastfeeding in public in Barrie, there are far more subtle ways some have made her feel unwelcome. She said the hardest times she’s had are being in restaurants, knowing that she’s eating, and the baby wants to eat too.
“(If people) have a direct line of sight, sometimes they get weirded out,” she said.
Becklund’s son is 19 months old and breastfeeds regularly. She said there’s a marked difference in how she was treated publicly when he was first born breastfeeding, versus how she’s treated now.
“Before six months, most people will give you props for trying,” she said. “After six months, people kind of look at you like, well, maybe you should just do that somewhere else. After a year, people look at you like, your kid’s too old for that. That’s an issue I have with North America as a whole.”
“The benefits of it don’t stop at a year, so if I don’t want to stop, I shouldn’t have to stop. The journey can continue,” she said.
The theme for the week, Breastfeeding: Foundation for Life, recognizes breastfeeding as the foundation of lifelong good health for babies and mothers. Breastfeeding is a low-cost way of feeding babies, with no additional burden on household income, and is an assurance of food security for babies even in times of crisis.
“Most women today choose to breastfeed,” said Lucy Bray, public health nurse with the health unit, adding that the initiation rate is that 91 per cent of women start off breastfeeding. “Through help and support, they can reach their breastfeeding goals, whatever that is... whatever’s best for them.”
“This is a natural way to feed your baby, and we should be welcoming it and not shying away from it,” said Bray.
Bray points to a recently completed survey that asked participants how comfortable they are seeing a woman breastfeeding in public. She said that while breastfeeding in public is a human right, the numbers show that about 74 per cent of people say they are comfortable.
“But that means one in four people aren’t comfortable, and we want to change that,” said Bray.
The Barrie Breastfeeding Action Team has put out a Facebook social media challenge for local moms with the hashtag #BFAwarenessChallenge2018. The challenge asks moms to take a photo of themselves breastfeeding to post with a caption of why they choose to breastfeed.
“We’re hoping people will share just to get the message out that World Breastfeeding Week is here,” said Bray. “It just promotes that awareness that people breastfeed for different reasons and different lengths of time.”
Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman read a proclamation before raising the flag on Monday, and shared an instance he recently dealt with where an instructor made a negative comment at a local community centre about breastfeeding in public.
“I said, “They can’t do that, it’s against human rights,’” recalled Lehman. “They cannot make comments that might make women feel ashamed of breastfeeding or suggest that it’s wrong or illegal. She needed to be told that, so we made sure that happened.”
“I probably wouldn’t have been aware of the human rights dimension of it without this event,” he said, adding that his wife breastfed publicly and that the advent of social media has hopefully changed the conversation as well.
Some local dignitaries sent representatives to celebrate the kickoff as well, including Kathryn Abel representing Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte MPP Doug Downey, and Keeragh Robertson representing Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte MP Alex Nuttall.
Also in attendance were Debra Bowser, co-founder of The Doula Group for Simcoe County and York Region and a few young moms who participate in the Barrie Breastfeeding Action Team.
With the support of community partners, the health unit achieved their Baby-Friendly Initiative (BFI) status in 2018. This is a world-wide designation from the World Health Organization and UNICEF to protect, promote and support breastfeeding and to support the infant feeding needs of all families.
Weekly breastfeeding drop-in programs are held in Alliston, Barrie, Bradford West Gwillimbury, Collingwood and Midland. A list of community services is available on the health unit’s website.
For information or help with breastfeeding, call Health Connection Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. or click here.
