The State Breastfeeding Task Force meets quarterly to work on special breastfeeding projects of interest to advocates across Illinois.
Materials developed by the Illinois State Breastfeeding Task Force are free to breastfeeding advocates. See project pages for PDFs of materials for download and printing.
Hospital Advocacy
The Hospital Advocacy Project was designed to help moms know their rights and empower them to request these rights when they are in the hospital.
Ideally, all hospitals should have breastfeeding friendly and evidence based practices. As a first step, we want to help administration understand how women feel about their birth experience.
Consumers play a large part in changing practices. With the “Breastfeeding Bill of Rights“, mothers will know their rights when they enter the hospital to give birth. The “Hospital Experience – Pleased” Letter and “Hospital Experience – Disappointed” Letter gives moms a quick and easy way to let the hospital know what their birth experience was like — did it meet their expectations or were they disappointed?
Breastfeeding Bill of Rights
The Breastfeeding Bill of Rights sets out “rights” a woman can request and expect during her hospital stay and delivery.
Hospital Experience – Pleased
Hospital Experience – Pleased Letter — a comment letter for mom to return to the hospital describing the breastfeeding support, education and care she received during the birth of her baby.
Hospital Experience – Disappointed
Hospital Experience – Disappointed Letter — a comment letter for mom to return to the hospital describing her dis-satisfaction with the breastfeeding support, education and care she received druing the birth of her baby.
We encourage you to make the Breastfeeding Bill of rights and Hospital Experience Letters available to moms in your classes, practices, community events, breastfeeding fairs, “rock & rest” stations, etc.
Encourage moms to fill out the appropriate letter and mail back to the hospital where she delivered her baby. Or collect the letters and mail them from your agency or task force. Help moms make their voices heard!
We hope that this will show hospital adminstrators that lactation consultants, knowledgeable staff and breastfeeding friendly practices are valued by moms and families using their hospital services.
Breastfeeding is Smart Business
…is an information campaign which describes how businesses benefit from providing supportive services for working breastfeeding mothers. Our informational brochure describes such benefits as greater employee satisfaction, improved productivity, lower turnover and reduced training costs, decreased absenteeism and increased company loyalty.
…is an awards campaign. Businesses who have established policies which support breastfeeding families by having a workplace pump site can receive the Breastfeeding is Smart Business Award. An award application was developed and is available to anyone in the community to nominate a business which is providing mother-friendly services at their worksite.
…is an awareness campaign to inform businesses about the “Nursing Mothers in the Workplace” legislation. Senate Bill 0542 was passed and made law in 2001 to support breastfeeding mothers in the workplace.
This legislation was amended (HB 1595, July 2018) and requires an employer to provide reasonable break time each day to an employee who needs to express breast milk for her nursing infant child each time the employee has the need to express milk for one year after the child’s birth. The break may run concurrently with any break time already provided to the employee. An employer may not reduce an employee’s compensation for time used for the purpose of expressing milk or nursing a baby.
The employer must make reasonable efforts to provide a room, other than a toilet stall, where the employee can express her milk in privacy. This affects all employers with more than 5 employees; including an individual, corporation, partnership, labor organization, or unincorporated association, the State, an agency or political subdivision of the State or any other legal, business, or commercial entity.
Grandmothers Tea
The Grandmothers Tea project was designed to help provide knowledgeable support for breastfeeding women. Recognizing that the “grandmother” population has a huge influence on whether our moms successfully breastfeed, the Grandmothers Tea educates grandmothers in a friendly atmosphere, influencing their attitudes about breastfeeding and improving Illinois’ breastfeeding rates.
As grandmothers in our community are sought out by new mothers for advice in infant and child-rearing issues, these grandmothers have the most up-to-date information on infant feeding practices.
The tea includes activities that focus on 3 major breastfeeding issues:
- Advantages of breastfeeding
- Myths women are told about breastfeeding
- Actions grandmothers can take to support breastfeeding women in their community
Designed to be adaptable to the learning needs of any community, the tea can include games, door prizes and refreshments.
The curriculum is very adaptable. Each section of the curriculum focuses on a particular subject and can be offered separately or presented in its entirety.
- Grandmothers Tea Curriculum
- Grandmothers Tea Outline
- Grandmothers Tea Flyer
- Grandmothers Tea Scenario Cards
The Grandmothers Tea Tool Kit is on the WIC Sharing Center website: http:/wicwicwicwic/www.nal.usda.gov/wicworks/Sharing_Center/gallery/wic_fam3.htm#
A Grandmothers’ Tea: Evaluation of a Breastfeeding Support Intervention
Jane S. Grassley, RN, PhD, IBCLC, Becky S. Spencer, MSN, RN, IBCLC, and Becky Law, BSN, IBCLC, LCCE; J Perinat Educ. 2012 Spring: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3400246/
Faith Based Initiative
The “Milk of Life” campaign is a faith-based initiative designed to promote breastfeeding in faith communities.
The “Milk of Life” campaign and brochure was adapted with permission from the Chicago Department of Public Health’s “Milk of Life” program. It was developed in association with the Illinois State Breastfeeding Task Force to assist in educating and empowering congregations within communities on ‘how breastfeeding nurtures healthy families’.
Education Panphlets
A series of educational pamphlets developed to assist in educating new moms.
Child Care Providers Education Project
In collaboration with the West Central Task Force, the State BF Task force is adapting materials developed by the West Central Task Force to provide breastfeeding education to daycare staff.
This project is designed to help child care centers improve their support of breastfeeding mothers and babies.
Join us in creating positive change in the community.
