effective breastfeeding campaigns?

[prettymom]

Most MDCers frequenting this forum are familiar with the flaws of the US National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign. One page on the site talks about the benefits of breastfeeding (flaw number one, but we'll let that one slide for the rest of this paragrah) and then on another it talks about how formula can also provide adequate nutrition and leads anyone reading it to believe that either choice (formula or bfing) is equally healthy for a baby.

My questions are these:
1) Has anyone ever seen these PSAs or ads about breastfeeding (where/when)? I know I heard the message "exclusive for 6 months, and at least one year" somewhere before DD was born, but I don't know where. Did this campaign work on me and I just don't remember the source? Where is the government advertising? I can't think of anytime I have seen any piece of this campaign outside general references made by my ped.

2) Are there any other breastfeeding campaigns in the US (other than personal ones)? Does anyone other than the government purchase ad space to promote bfing?

[Mama Poot]

I've seen billboards that say "babies are born to be breastfed" in several places, but thats it. I think they are not effective at all. Breastfeeding awareness campaigns need to be blunt and straightforward, in my opinion at least.

[prettymom]

I agree. I just can't think of a time I have seen ANY breastfeeding campaigning in public places. But for me, it is hard to separate what I have encountered in public and what I have immersed myself in personally. There seems to be a lot of information if you look for it, but almost nothing if you don't.

[Breastfeeding Insomniac]

The national campaign was the "Babies were born to be breastfed" and from what know, the campaign has expired, so we will not be seeing any of the ads. This was the campaign that originally started with the controversial pictures of nipples attached to insulin bottles and inhalers, in order to show the correlation with formula feeding to increased asthma and diabetes, these ads never made it to the public bc it was squashed, a few months back someone blew the lid off the story. This is info on the ad campaign:
http://4women.gov/breastfeeding/index.cfm?page=Campaign
I have a blog here about the campaign getting squashed:
http://lactationsensation.blogspot.c...1_archive.html

This is were you can see the watered down adds that did make it to the public:

http://4women.gov/breastfeeding/inde...page=adcouncil

This is where you can read the bf recommendations you were looking for:
http://aappolicy.aappublications.org...rics;115/2/496

[prettymom]

I am familiar with what happened to the national campaign and where I can find all the information on breastfeeding I want. Perhaps I should re-phrase my quesitons. Where would a teenage girl, with few thoughts to her future role as a mother, be exposed to a pro-breastfeeding campaign? What current messages are there (other than hopefully bfing family and friends) that would make her decide to breastfeed her child years from now? Where are people who are not looking for these messages running into them? I know there aren't a wealth of mediums, but is there nothing at all?

[Breastfeeding Insomniac]

Originally Posted by prettymom

I know there aren't a wealth of mediums, but is there nothing at all?

Very little. I have a 15 yr old daughter and the only way her and her friends know of bf and its benefits is bc I bf my little guy, and bc of my career. No one can come in my house without seeing a book, or pamphlet, or some other bf info somewhere in here.

Breastfeeding is not taught in schools, and it should be. We are facing a health crisis of childhood obesity, which can be reduced significantly if we could increase the breastfeeding rates. Story hours in kindergarten should feature an occasional book with an animal nursing its baby, just to start to plant the seed early that this is how a mom feeds her baby. Then hopefully, it can even lead to a discussion on it. Many will say forget the animal and read them something like, breastmilk makes my tummy yummy, but I think at 5we need to start gently and without controversy, and like it or not, this would create controversy, and no parental compaints should arise from mentioning an animal nursing its young.

[MaryJaneLouise]

Some WIC offices have bfing campaigns.