Happy 50th Birthday Le Leche League!
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Tuesday, July 11, 2006
50 Years of Mother's MilkIn 1956, seven breastfeeding mothers of Franklin Park, Ill., formed the international, nonprofit, nonsecretarian organization as a way to preserve and protect a natural practice that threatened to go out of style upon the commercial distribution of artificial baby formula.
The organization now has more than 3,000 groups in 66 countries.
Well done ladies...well done. ;)
Labels: Lactivism
Never underestimate the power of a lactating woman! LOL!
They're a great group. It's really too bad that they've got a "militant" reputation. When I told family and friends that I went to a La Leche League meeting, they ALL said something along the lines of: "Oh, they're that militant breast-feeding group. They force you to breast-feed your child until he's 5 years old!"
I found the members of the La Leche League to be very supportive and non-militant at all. How did they get such a reputation?
Unfortunately it only takes one or two bad experiences to taint the whole bunch, ya know?
We had a neighbor growing up that WAS a militant breastfeeder and that DID nurse her kids until they went to school. She was a little odd in many, many ways.
She was the local LLL leader. She was the only "experience" I had to associate with the group until college.
Then I met several folks that were involved and that were "normal." ;)
I am 50yr old and went to LLL years ago and have dear friends who are retired LLLL, and I' m a trained Board certified lactation Consultant.
LLL has a militant reputation because
1) Its about and for women + Children
2) They do not have a broad mission, unwavering mission to support breastfeeding.
3) does not teach you to bottle feed or use formula.
Here’s my homemade theory I dreamed up...
About the same time, LLL was founded by a group of Prolactin
high lactating moms so was Alcoholic Anonymous by a group of drunken men.
They are very similar support groups organizationally, on a local support level and as a non-profit org. However AA is not perceived or considered a militant organization by the public, the press or medial community even though they share a single mission like LLL, and has a loyal international support group following. AA promotes only sobriety, it does not teach one how to be a social drinker, exactly like LLL it teaches and support you to breastfeed,
See all the similarities, and AA is never considered militant it gets great press.
That takes us back to reason #1 Woman & Children.
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