MONTGOMERY-“Empower Parents, Enable Breastfeeding” is the theme the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action selected for World Breastfeeding Week, August 1-7, 2019. The Alabama Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) supplemental nutrition program recognizes the month of August as Breastfeeding Awareness Month. This theme helps raise awareness about the importance of support from health professionals, employers, public health, families and communities to empower parents.
Women may experience challenges in the workplace that interfere with continued breastfeeding. It is important that mothers have support to reach their breastfeeding goals. WIC plays a vital role in the promotion and support of breastfeeding to improve the health outcomes of mothers and babies through education, support and referrals.
“To help mothers reach their breastfeeding goals, we call for greater support for mothers to breastfeed exclusively for 6 months and then continued breastfeeding with appropriate complementary foods,” Michell Grainger, state lactation coordinator with the WIC Program, Alabama Department of Public Health, said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s breastfeeding campaign “WIC Breastfeeding Support: Learn Together, Grow Together” emphasizes that breastfeeding is a journey. The website https://wicbreastfeeding.fns.
The Healthy People 2020 objectives of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are as follows:
· To increase the number of infants who are breastfed to 81.9 percent
· To have 60.6 percent of infants breastfeeding at 6 months of age
· For 46.2 percent of infants to be breastfed exclusively through 3 months
For more information contact Michell Grainger, DNP, RNC-OB, IBCLC, State Lactation Coordinator, WIC Program, Bureau of Family Health Services, at (334) 206-5673, michell.grainger@adph.state.
Media Release/Michell Grainger/ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH
