LATCH Celebrates Breastfeeding Month!

It is a very busy month for LATCH as we celebrate Breastfeeding Month!!

First up is our campaign for August: Give Life, Live Life, Breastfeed!

Among the booby traps to breastfeeding is that new moms think that if they breastfeeding, they'll be stuck to their babies, at home and their partners have no way of helping them.  This campaign seeks to disprove this trap and in fact, breastfeeding not only gives life to your nurslings but allow the moms to live life to the fullest!
How? Well, check out LATCH's spread in The Working Mom Magazine's August issue!

Photos by Karen Ilagan for LATCH and Working Mom Magazine

Breastfeeding allows mom to have a "portable baby," ready for shopping, church, travel, dinner or lunch out with friends without mom having to worry about where to get clean water, where to wash bottles, did she pack enough formula for the day, etc. etc.?  Again, breastfeeding not only lets moms give life to their babies but also allows them to live their life!

August is Breastfeeding Month!

It's August once again and it's time for Breastfeeding Month and there are a variety of activities scheduled to suit everyone.

First, let's talk about shopping!

L.A.T.C.H. will be a co-sponsor of this event and if you attended this event last year, you'd be sure to remember our Singing Bee-nefits Game, hosted by Buding!  And of course, since this is an "open" bazaar, you can be sure to see all your favorite nursing brands and stores - such as Mama.Baby.Love (my online store :D), Mamaway, Eden, Mothers En Vogue, Mommy Matters, Mama Au Lait and Maternalove.

Breastfeeding Calendars for 2011

It's that time for the year again - for the hunt for new calendars! I was hoping that L.A.T.C.H. would be able to have its own breastfeeding calendar but events last year (Ondoy flood) cancelled those plans and this year, well, we were busy with other things. But - my husband has taken breastfeeding photos of several L.A.T.C.H.ers and I hope this calendar does become a reality soon!

Meanwhile, here are some of the breastfeeding calendars you can choose from for 2011.

Velvet & Vo'Gel

Top of the list would be Baby Milk Action's IBFAN 2011 Breastfeeding Calendar. Pinay breastfeeding advocate Velvet is featured in April 2011, with her then 1-year old daughter Vo'Gel. Each calendar is available for GBP9 (about 630pesos) for delivery outside the UK.

Another lovely calendar is The Beauty of Mothering calendar which is a collection of images of breastfeeding mothers and babies, paired with breastfeeding quotations and lunar cycles. The calendar costs USD$14.99 plus shipping of $4.99 within the US. I'm not quite sure if they ship internationally.

Over at Cafe Press, I found 2 interesting calendars. The first is a vertical wall calendar costing AUD26 made by Birth, Breastfeeding & Babywearing is more of a motherhood calendar of abstract images of pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding.

The second calendar is from Cafe LaLeche's Breastfeeding & Advocacy Shop. This calendar costs AUD23.50 and is filled with pastel paintings of nursing mothers and their babies.

Another Australian calendar is from the Australian Breastfeeding Association costing AUD16.95. What I love about this calendar is that it includes images of fathers (not breastfeeding of course :D) and families which were chosen from shots submitted to the Association.

Like the Australian Breastfeeding Association's calendar, the Sonoma County of California's 2011 Breastfeeding Calendar also comprises of submitted images from the Sonoma County 12th Annual Photography Contest for Positive Images of Breastfeeding. However, I don't think the calendar is available for online purchase although if you are from Sonoma County, you can get the calendar in 2011 at local community clinics, health provider offices and the Sonoma County's Public Health Office. There is also the breastfeeding calendar from the Prairie Village (Kansas) La Leche League Association which is their fund raiser for the fall. The calendar costs USD$18 and documents a "beautiful year of breastfeeding all age children, pumping and babywearing." Finally, Bosom Buddies of Mid-Essex has a 16-month calendar (July 2010 - December 2011) called The Breast of Essex to support the launch of East England Breastfeeding Framework. The calendar costs GBP5 and can be purchased through Paypal.

With all the variety of calendars available, you can certainly have 1 new calendar for almost each month of 2011! I would most likely buy IBFAN's calendar. Which one would you choose?