"Babies Were Born to be Breastfed" is the slogan of the National
Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign that will finally be launched sometime this Spring. The
Leadership Team of the US Breastfeeding Committee met with Asst Secretary for
Public Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services last Thursday to
be briefed on the status of the delayed campaign. At this point in time the
risk-focused strategy remains but the relative risk statements and the
references to leukemia and diabetes have been removed. One of the strongest points in
the campaign is that the ads will feature the importance of EXCLUSIVE
breastfeeding for 6 months. This is fully supported and backed by HHS and NIH. While
the ads targeting childhood diabetes and leukemia have been removed, HHS has
committed to further study of the risk relationships between these diseases and
not breastfeeding.

I had the privilege of being present at this meeting and was awed with the
number of responses that HHS had received regarding this campaign (so were
they). We saw stacks of letters, over 500, that had been received. In addition
hundreds of e-mails had flooded HHS, combining into about 1000 messages. ALL of
the letters were read by numerous people in the Department. I can't emphasize
enough how important all those letters were in making sure that this campaign
did not get canceled and retained as much as it did regarding the risks of not
breastfeeding. All of you who wrote in support of this campaign should feel
very proud and gratified that you had a hand in shaping the outcome of this
effort. We may not have gotten everything we wanted but I think babies and mothers
have just received a tremendous boost in the right direction.

So as not to make this note too long, I will be happy to answer questions or
further elaborate as needed. Please feel free to contact me and I will be
happy to help in any way I can. We have been asked not to go into specific details
until the campaign actually launches but I will certainly share what I can.

Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC
Weston, MA

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