Every year, World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated across the globe from August 1 to August 7. This year’s theme is “Step Up for Breastfeeding: Educate and Support,” to help raise awareness of the value of breastfeeding and to encourage organizations to offer more support for breastfeeding mothers.
Whether you are considering breastfeeding your first baby, or breastfed years ago, this week is about encouraging the moms around us and supporting each other through the good times and bad.
Breastfeeding isn’t always easy
The truth is, you can take all of the classes and read all of the books, and breastfeeding can still be extremely difficult. It doesn’t come natural to everyone, but thankfully, more and more women are talking about the difficulties and how we can move past them, or not (and that’s okay too).
Support the new moms in your life
Being a new mom is hard, and feeding a baby is another thing on the long list of things to figure out. As much as we wish the hospital sent us home with a manual, it doesn’t. This week is a good reminder to reach out to the new moms in your life, whether it’s to ask how she’s doing, or to give her a few words of encouragement.
Everyone’s journey is different
Some moms choose not to nurse, some nurse one week, some a few months, and some a year and beyond. No matter the journey, we all want to reach the destination of having a happy, fed baby. World Breastfeeding Week is a good reminder that everyone’s experience will look different, and that’s okay.
Let’s hear it for the pumping moms
Speaking from experience, pumping takes both time and dedication that made me wish that breastfeeding had worked, while being thankful that breast pumps exist. Whether you are exclusively pumping or pumping every once in a while, it is a part of breastfeeding that deserves more support and awareness. Thankfully, these moms are talking about it.
Closing the breastfeeding chapter
All things must come to an end, and at some point, that thing will be breastfeeding. It’s okay to feel all of the feels, because no matter how long it lasted, you had a bond like no other with your baby during that time.