The Fourth Annual Community Breastfeeding Awards will honor six individuals and organizations who have made a difference in protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding in our community. The awards will be held Thursday, May 10th 2012 at Warner Park Community Center 1625 Northport Dr Madison, Wisconsin at 6:30 PM. The event is sponsored by the Breastfeeding Coalition of South Central Wisconsin and Public Health-Madison and Dane County.

"These awards recognize those in our community who have demonstrated a strong commitment to the promotion, protection and support of the practice of breastfeeding", said Alice Meyer, Public Health Nurse and President of the Breastfeeding Coalition of South Central Wisconsin. "Breastfeeding is widely recognized for improving health outcomes for mothers and babies. Creating environments that are welcoming to moms who are breastfeeding is a vital way of promoting an activity that makes a huge difference in the health of our community."

The American Academy of Pediatric has recently updated their policy on breastfeeding stressing the importance of breastfeeding and encouraging mothers to exclusively breastfeed for the first 6 months of a baby's life.

Following is a list of this year's recipients:

Sequoya Library
Breastfeeding Friendly Business/ Public Place Award

Sequoya Library has established a private pumping space open to all who need to use it. This includes such members of our community as UPS drivers, police officers, etc. who's jobs keep them away from their home or work space during their work day. In addition, the library has many spaces throughout the building with comfortable sofas and chairs where a mother can nurse her child. The library hosts monthly meetings of the West Side Madison La Leche League morning group (3rd Tuesdays at 10 AM), and other informal gatherings of mothers and babies meet there on a regular basis as well. The staff at the ASK desk is gracious and welcoming.

Hill Farms State Transportation Building
Breastfeeding Friendly Employer

This work site has created a private lactation pumping space for its employees in a multipurpose room and library. The Department of Transportation has 1,300 employees. (3,300 employees statewide, who may come to Madison for meetings). This room is widely used. It is very conducive to meet the needs of a mother who needs to pump her milk. They have collected some books on parenting issues to put on the library bookshelves. Signup for use of the room is via a web site, and a schedule is posted on the door (without names). If planned reconstruction of this building moves forward (currently on hold due to economy), they would like to create additional lactation rooms. Hill Farms State Office Building has realized the importance of breastfeeding and the positive impact on the work place for working parents. Breastfed babies are healthier and therefore moms miss less work time due to an ill child.

Jill Mallory M.D.
Healthcare Award

Dr. Jill Mallory is an integrative family physician at Wildwood Family Clinic. She is board certified in family medicine, holistic medicine, and lactation consultation. Dr. Mallory specializes in whole family care with an emphasis on integrative/holistic medicine, lactation, and natural childbirth. Dr.Mallory was nominated for the Healthcare Award because she has been instrumental in helping to change environments and policies in our local healthcare organizations as well as going above and beyond in the healthcare she provides to her clients. Dr. Mallory ensures that each of her patients have the needed knowledge and support to be successful at breastfeeding. She goes the extra mile by providing postpartum home visits for her clients to ensure that breastfeeding gets off to the best start. In every clinic Dr. Mallory has worked in, she has worked with clinic staff to ensure the environment was conducive for breastfeeding staff and patients. Dr.Mallory continually provides continuing education in breastfeeding medicine to fellow physicians and other healthcare providers. She is an active member of the Breastfeeding Coalition of South Central Wisconsin's Healthcare Outreach Committee. Dr. Mallory was instrumental in the decision recently made by St. Mary's Hospital to pursue baby-friendly status - a designation of the World Health Organization.

Dorothy Bass
Breastfeeding Friendly Day Care

Dorothy has taken a personal interest in supporting the young mothers who attend SAPAR- the School Age Parent Program and community members who send their young infants and toddlers to Wee Start Day Care Center. This last year in particular, Dorothy as lead teacher for
Wee Start has obtained breastfeeding educational materials which she distributes and has helped with individual problem solving to support teen mothers in breast feeding. Dorothy eagerly uses the educational materials that have been provided to her, and Dorothy seeks help if further support is needed. Dorothy also works with the other professionals at SAPAR as part of a team to problem-solve breastfeeding concerns.

Dorothy has taken a keen interest in learning about the stress that infants might have and how this may influence their feeding behavior. Dorothy applies the Life Course Perspective Model of intervention and promotes breastfeeding as one step in responding to stress of infants especially of teen moms. Dorothy wishes to support the black community in initiating and maintaining breastfeeding as one way to improve health and well being of young mothers and infants. She also speaks in the classroom about of benefits of breast feeding.

Sue Stowell
Breastfeeding Advocate Award

Sue Stowell has been a strong advocate for breastfeeding throughout her 47 years as a mother-baby nurse in Madison. She has literally worked with thousands of breastfeeding mothers since she first began her career.
Sue received her credentials as a Certified Lactation Consultant from Georgetown University in 1993. She then worked in the role of LC as well as RN at Meriter and became instrumental in promoting changes in hospital policy to support the success of new breastfeeding mothers. Some of these changes included encouraging rooming-in (when babies stay in the room with the moms) for newborns to maximize contact with parents, ending the policy of sending new mothers home with free formula (even if they were breastfeeding) and initiating breastfeeding within the first hour after birth.
Sue was actively involved in helping Meriter Hospital Birthing Center to achieve
the Baby-Friendly designation. Her primary goal has always been to do what is best for babies and their mothers/families.

Sue continues to work in her role as postpartum nurse at Meriter teaching her fellow nurses and nursing students the many skills and techniques which will help support breastfeeding success. She has also been active in the Wisconsin Association of Lactation Consultants and continues to keep "abreast" of current research in the field.

Anne Altshuler
Distinguished Service Award

The Breastfeeding Coalition is so happy to honor one of our own, Anne Altshuler, a Masters prepared nurse and International Board Certified Lactation Consultant for this award. In fact, we created this award category this year in order to finally recognize the fact that Anne has been almost a full time volunteer for decades in promoting and supporting breastfeeding.

After having her own children instead of returning to work as a clinical Nurse Specialist and Professor of Pediatrics in the UW School of Nursing she became an accredited and active La Leche Leader which she continues to lead more than 20 years later. She founded one of the few La Leche groups in the country devoted to mothers of multiples. She was one of the first in Wisconsin to become an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. She has been a very involved member of the Madison Breastfeeding Promotion Network which is now the Breastfeeding Coalition of South Central Wisconsin. Anne was instrumental in helping pass the Wisconsin Right to Breastfeed Act that was signed into law in 2010. Anne has been a pillar of support for almost every local and statewide organization that promotes breastfeeding - doing it all as a volunteer. She is an inspiration to us all!

For more information on the health benefits of breastfeeding, and on where to find support, see the following links:

http://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding

http://https://www.publichealthmdc.com/health-services/breastfeeding

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Public Health - Madison & Dane County