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MEDIA RELEASE – Sunday, August 27th, 3:00pm-6:00pm

Oakland’s Breastfeeding Festival

INTERVIEW AND PHOTO OPPORTUNITY

On Sunday, August 27th, from 3:00pm until 6:00pm, Hosted by The Better Birth Foundation and Bay Area Birth Justice Fair, Oakland will have its third Annual Oakland’s Breastfeeding Festival in celebration of World Breastfeeding Month, and Black Breastfeeding Week.  This event will highlight Oakland’s needs for support, community, and education in breastfeeding for ALL breastfeeding people and their supporters.  This event includes all forms of breastfeeding including parents that exclusively pump, receive donor milk, and the LGBTQ community.  There will be a number of speakers, snacks, as well as a local lactation counselors and educators to provide information and support.  At 5:00pm, we will all breastfeed together for one minute in a communal “Latch On” to mark a moment of community, awareness, and support for breastfeeding and its benefits. Oakland’s BFF is providing the opportunity for breastfeeding women to get together in our community, and identify opportunities for on-going support.  For more information, visit our events page at https://www.facebook.com/events/1328993543879974

Oakland’s BFF will take place at Lake Merritt’s “Kids Kingdom” located next to the Rotary Nature Center at Lake Merritt, on the lake side of Bellevue Avenue (between Staten Avenue and Perkins Street) in Oakland.  The festival will begin at 3:00pm, with a communal “latch on’ at 5:00pm, and ending at 6:00pm.  This is a FREE event but your donations are welcome to further the work of the Oakland Better Birth Foundation. www.oaklandbetterbirthfoundation.com

On August 2001, to raise awareness of the benefits of breastfeeding and the need for global support, United States Breastfeeding Committee declared August, World Breastfeeding Month.  During World Breastfeeding Month, several events take place both nationally and on a global scale.  All of which provide, support, education, and global goals for breastfeeding and its benefits.  

The final week of August also marks Black Breastfeeding Week.  This is a monumental movement in its third year brings awareness to the gaping racial disparity in breastfeeding rates.   According to the CDC, “Black infants consistently had the lowest rates of breastfeeding initiation and duration across all study years” (http://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/resources/breastfeeding-trends.htm).  “Of infants born in 2011, 49% were breastfeeding at 6 months and 27% at 12 months.  African American Infants in 2011, 35% were breastfeeding at 6 months, and 16% at 12 months” (http://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/data/nis_data/rates-any-exclusive-bf-socio-dem-2012.htm).  This movement’s goals and the women that founded its direction are calling attention to the nation that support, education, and change is needed to bring up breastfeeding rates.  Please visit http://blackbreastfeedingweek.org/#event-media for more information.  

Breastfeeding contributes to the normal growth and development of babies/children, and babies/children who are not breastfed are at increased risk of infant morbidity and mortality, adult obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and premenopausal breast cancer and ovarian cancer (both mom and baby.) The World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding exclusively for the first six months of a baby’s life to optimize these benefits, continuing to breastfeed for 2 years and as long thereafter as is mutually desired by a woman and her child.

For more information:

Laura Cox, LauMrg8@aol.com, 831-229-9947

SamSarah Morgan, LSamsarahMorgan@gmail.com, 510-393-7380

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