Across the United States, most new mothers hope to breastfeed. Breastfeeding can protect the health of babies and their mothers. Breastfeeding can be a challenge, so it’s important to help moms through this critical time. With support from their families and communities, mothers are more likely to be able to breastfeed their babies.

5 Ways you can you help mothers breastfeed

1. Make a commitment to support breastfeeding mothers here on the reservation. Make sure your community helps mothers who want to breastfeed. Normalize breastfeeding!
2. Attention Fathers and Grandmothers, you are a mother’s primary support network! Learn about ways you can support mamma to feed her baby. Neighbors, friends and others: Support breastfeeding indirectly. Bring over a meal and some easy-to-eat snacks or offer to watch a new mom’s older kids. Mow a new family’s lawn or offer to clean the house. Whatever you can do to take the pressure of new parenthood off of a family can help ensure breastfeeding success. It can be difficult for some moms to sit and breastfeed, knowing that so much else is undone. Give them the chance to relax, enjoy their new baby, and learn how to breastfeed together.
3. Talk with moms about breastfeeding before the baby is born. Establishing support and resources prior to birth can greatly increase the chances mom will reach her breastfeeding goal.
4. 3 a.m. and have a question? KellyMom.com and La Leche League International have a lot of high-quality, evidence-based information on a wide variety of breastfeeding topics, (some things on the internet may not be true, but these two websites are peer-reviewed and contain accurate information)
5. Use the resources of your community to connect mothers to assistance such as mother-to-mother support groups, Infant Nutrition Program and WIC.  These programs can help them keep breastfeeding even if there are problems.  Forest County Potawatomi Community Health Department Maternal Child Health and WIC are two great programs ready to help! To find out more on the resources available, visit the Community Health Website at cmh.fcpotawatomi.com, stop in or give us a call, 715.478.4355