The Breastfeeding Family Friendly Community designation was a dream of Dr. Miriam Labbok, founder of the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute, who created the designation and piloted the initiative in Carrboro and Chapel Hill. It was with great sadness that Dr. Labbok became ill, and after Dr. Labbok passed, a group of advocates continued the legacy, remaining dedicated to completing all Ten Steps in Carrboro. We are delighted and honored to share that Carrboro is the first community in the nation to successfully complete all of the Steps! Check out the PROCLAMATION! It was a community effort, and there are so many to thank!
Welcoming Atmosphere!
Step One and Two are all about providing a Welcoming Atmosphere in our Town. The Mayor and Town Council, the Town Manager, the Carrboro Communication Department, local First Responders, and advocates across many Town departments have all played a part in achieving the Ten Steps from providing media coverage and proclamations to signage across the Town. There also is an active and supportive community of local media outlets that regularly feature articles and interviews with local lactation support providers about breastfeeding and lactation topics.
Resources and Support for Parents!
Steps Three to Six focus on providing support and resources for parents to support informed decisions. Our local and County health leadership was instrumental in achieving the designation. The Orange County Health Department and Piedmont Health Services in Carrboro are valuable stakeholders in the initiative and have been vital to its success in Carrboro! And we have benefitted from a strong local lactation support provider community, the continued support of the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute, and the work of UNC Hospitals which has maintained the Baby-Friendly Designation!
Community Partners & Employers!
For families to succeed in meeting their infant feeding goals, the welcoming community needs to extend to all the places where families interact – where they work, play, shop, dine, learn, and grow! Steps Seven and Nine of the Breastfeeding Family Friendly Community designation reflect that understanding, and our Carrboro businesses and organizations stepped up to help Carrboro meet that need. They became Community Partners and Employers, offering a welcome to families that visit their businesses and organizations and supporting their employees and students to continue to provide their milk after going back to work or school. Thank you to the welcoming and enthusiastic Carrboro business community! We hope that you will check out the website for the list of businesses and organizations that have signed on in Carrboro and across Orange County.
We also are grateful to the NC Department of Health and Human Services for the Making it Work toolkit and to local business organizations and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber for sharing information about the NC resource, the local initiative, and the important role of businesses and organizations in welcoming lactating families.
The Code of Marketing!
Although situated between two steps about businesses and organizations, Step Eight encompasses more than just businesses. It includes our healthcare providers. This step calls on all local businesses, organizations, and healthcare providers to follow the principles of The International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes. This important step acknowledges that the marketing or advertising of infant formula has been shown to impact a family’s confidence in meeting their nursing goals. Our local businesses and healthcare providers have affirmed that they will follow the principles of The Code of Marketing. As the Proclamation notes: The International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes recognizes that the inappropriate and unnecessary marketing and distribution of breast-milk substitutes by healthcare facilities and businesses can impact the infant feeding practices of families, and our community partners affirm their commitment to supporting families to make informed infant feeding decisions
Our Education Systems!
Step Ten is about normalizing breastfeeding for the youngest community members, and our dedicated educational programs played an important role in building a welcoming community; normalizing breastfeeding, chestfeeding, and human milk feeding for our youngest community members; and achieving the designation in Carrboro. We are thankful for the support and advocacy of the Orange County Partnership for Young Children (OCPYC), the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (CHCCS), and all of the childcare programs and schools. Breastfeed Orange NC provided books for the CHCCS pre-kindergarten programs and local school libraries and partnered with OCPYC to provide breastfeeding-positive materials to local childcare programs. A note about the books featured above: Images are powerful and help to normalize breastfeeding. From the covers, not all of these books look like books about breastfeeding; however, in each book there is an image or two of a nursing couple and help to normalize breastfeeding for children.
These are the Ten Steps that Carrboro completed to be designated as a Breastfeeding Family Friendly Community. The PROCLAMATION acknowledges this achievement with a statement about each of the Ten Steps! Supporting the Ten Steps was a Community effort! Thank You to all in Carrboro and across the County for your support and welcome