Celebrate Breastfeeding Laws & Raise Awareness About The Laws That Don’t Exist
It took a significant amount of planning to develop the idea for the first International Day to Normalize Breastfeeding. However, most of the difficult work began only one week before the day. We started to receive tons of requests to “make it happen” in their local area, but the truth is that we just didn’t have the time to even receive responses back from the Mayors to which we had submitted the proclamation requests. Today we still have people active on the event page, liking, posting, and commenting with new content. We reached a grand total 185k people just from the event page. There was LIVE coverage of the event here in San Diego and also a follow up story written by Carolina Bologna of the Huffington Post.
The support was truly overwhelming. I was coming down from all of the excitement and seeking out a fun way to launch our Meetup Tour to Normalize Breastfeeding. A mama seeking out a photo session offered to host the launch event in CA and also suggested that we hold the Meetup at the State Capitol building. I saw this as not only the opportunity for a wonderful time, but in line with National Breastfeeding Awareness Month, the perfect opportunity to draw attention to breastfeeding laws, discrimination and harassment in the United States of America.
Now more than ever, women are experiencing #NIP (nursing in public) situations from public misunderstandings, to harassment, to discrimination, to even reports of online shaming where people take pictures of mothers breastfeeding openly in public to only then post them on social media with negative commentary. I mean seriously!
IT’S A MOTHER FEEDING HER CHILD.
Also, just a quick reminder to sign the petition for Idaho’s lawmakers to create laws for mothers and babies to breastfeed in public.
It’s because of these situations that this breastfeeding awareness media campaign even exists. For the past year we have been working hard to establish local groups across the country to provide local support to moms everywhere via social media, but we are also looking to do something even greater that is building up the community. On August 10 2015, I will kick off the meetup tour, but we have also submitted a new proclamation to the Mayor’s in all of the state capitols to draw awareness to our rights to breastfeed – especially regarding nursing in public, pumping at the workplace, and on the back our new #BfingLawDay Tshirts there are even state law codes regarding exemption from jury duty during breastfeeding.
Considering that I am kicking off the Meetup Tour to Normalize Breastfeeding in Sacramento at the CA state capitol building during National Breastfeeding Awareness Month, we have collaborated with the Nationwide Nurse-In to submit an additional proclamation to the mayor of Sacramento, and all of the State Capitols across the United States to seek approval for the the first Breastfeeding Law Awareness Day. We have made contact with the Mayor’s assistant and she said we should have a definite answer regarding the Mayor’s approval and involvement some time next week! However, if it is not approved, I have to be honest, we will still be there raising awareness.
View the Proclamation: goo.gl/zhRw6b
Submit A Proclamation: goo.gl/GFFIM3
Photographers Create an Event: goo.gl/8h46Xh
This a celebratory reflection of Laura Delmonico’s annual event which gathers nursing moms at their state capitol while lawmakers are in session in April to draw attention to public breastfeeding laws.
#BFingLawDay is a collaboration of photographers meeting up with nursing moms and their community of breastfeeding supporters, for a group photo in front of their state capitol building then posting the images that same day and throughout the week on social media to spread awareness that they know their breastfeeding laws, or lack there of! The proclamation has also been extended to bring awareness to the laws affecting pumping mothers at work. Although this is a national initiative, we will not hesitate to encourage countries around the world to submit the proclamation in their own areas as well in support of their own local efforts to uphold, or create breastfeeding laws that protect breastfeeding mothers and babies.
Together we can stop the shame, harassment, and discrimination!
Official Locations: Sacramento – Breastfeeding Law Awareness Day Oklahoma City, OK – Breastfeeding Laws Awareness Day Lansing – Breastfeeding Laws Awareness Day Washington DC – Breastfeeding Laws Awareness Day Hartford, CT – Breastfeeding Laws Awareness Day
Official Virtual Co-hosts: Candid Perspective Photography Vanessa A. Simmons, Photographer Nationwide Nurse-In (Private Group) Sara Dragman Photography – Oklahoma Birth, Newborn, Family Erin White Photography Magan Konoski Photography Vita Catturati Photography, LLC Sabrena Rexing Photography