World Breastfeeding Week Celebration

Additional Information

 The Billings Breastfeeding Coalition will host a World Breastfeeding Week celebration at ZooMontana. The event includes a bounce house, face painting, vendors, lactation resource table, concessions, parent/infant yoga demos, and free raffles. Zoo animals will also be on display.

World Breastfeeding Week marks the anniversary of the Innocent Declaration. The Declaration recognizes that breastfeeding provides the ideal nutrition for infants, reduces incidence and severity of infectious diseases, contributes to women’s health and provides social and economic benefits to the family and the nation. This year’s slogan “Empower Parents, Enable Breastfeeding” was chosen to be inclusive of all types of parents and to highlight the vital need for support in helping parents reach their breastfeeding goals.

 The Billings Breastfeeding Coalition includes lactation specialists from St. Vincent Healthcare, RiverStone Health, Billings La Leche League, Billings Clinic, and Children’s Clinic. It is dedicated to supporting, promoting and protecting breastfeeding.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Public Health Association, the Institute of Medicine, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and the World Health Organization recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life for healthy full-term infants. If 90% of U.S. families could comply with this recommendation, the United States would save $13 billion per year in pediatric health costs.