I'm still no-mail, but I must brag about our breastfeeding media event
yesterday in Oregon.
We took World Breastfeeding Week (well, we were a little late...) as a
time to help publicize breastfeeding in Oregon. As I posted earlier, we
have had several significant events recently in Oregon - the passage of
our breastfeeding in public law, and the signing of an executive order by
the Governor to make all state agencies "Breastfeeding Mother Friendly".
As part of a campaign to let the public know that it is now "legal" to
breastfeed in public, we have produced several things.
1) We produced our own "Breastfeeding Welcome Here" stickers.
2) We also produced wallet size cards with our logo and the new bill
stated on it (luckily the bill was brief). We hope that women will carry
these with them to help if they are asked to stop breastfeeding.
3) We produced a newspaper ad (not yet published).
4) And, we publicized our list of companies who have received their
"Breastfeeding Mother Friendly Employer" certificates.
For our media event, we found a locally owned, well known business
(Hanna Andersson - a clothing retail store and catalog company) who
not only has a mother's room in their store, but also has breastfeeding
friendly policies for their employees.
We gathered at Hanna Andersson's local retail store to present them
with the first "Breastfeeding Welcome Here" sticker. We also awarded
about 10 companies with their "Breastfeeding Mother Friendly
Workplace" certificates. And, we honored the community groups that
helped pass the breastfeeding in public bill. Our State Health Division
Medical Officer spoke, the legislator who sponsored the bill spoke, and a
representative from the Oregon Academy of Pediatrics spoke.
We sent out press releases and had *excellent* media coverage on
Portland's three major TV networks' evening news, one TV station in
Eugene, one radio station (including an hour long call-in show), and the
Portland newspaper. (and that's just what we know about)
Unbelievable!!
I would recommend that anyone interested in holding a media event to
help publicize breastfeeding get the help of someone experienced in
public relations - that was the key to our success. (We are lucky to
have a nutritionist at the state Health Division who specializes also in
PR).
If you have any questions about the event you can contact me or Kristin
Sasseen ( mailto:[log in to unmask] ) who coordinated the
event.
Debi VanderMey Barr, MS, RD, LD
Breastfeeding Promotion Coordinator
Oregon WIC Program
mailto:[log in to unmask]
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