Initiative Aims to Make Brookings a More Breastfeeding Friendly Community

There's an initiative currently making its way through the city of Brookings with the purpose of making businesses in the community more breastfeeding friendly to nursing mothers.

The conversation for the initiative started back in 2012 between the South Dakota Department of Health and Brookings Health System. The intent of the discussions was to gather community members together to talk about breastfeeding on the job, with the hope of making workplaces in the city more breastfeeding friendly. The conversations quickly progressed into the breastfeeding-friendly business initiative.

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The objective of the initiative is to provide a welcoming environment for both customers and employees to breastfeed and to have friendly, knowledgeable staff, who are up to speed on the latest policies and laws regarding breastfeeding. The main goal is to make breastfeeding and/or pumping a non-event.

Executive Director of the Children's Museum of South Dakota, Kate Treiber, is one of the people responsible for taking steps to provide these needs for nursing mothers and families.

Treiber says, "We're here to serve families from the Brookings area, or regionally, or across the country, and so we want to send a message that we are supportive of families and it's a basic, biological need."

By law, nursing mothers in South Dakota are allowed to breast feed in public or in private locations, with the stipulation that they must obey municipal laws.

So far eight Brookings businesses have pledged their support for the initiative. Each business will display a sticker at the entrance of the business saying 'Breastfeeding Welcome Here.'

Students from SDSU will join the effort as well. Starting in April, they plan to visit local businesses asking them to take the pledge.

If all goes as planned, initiatives like this one could be seen in other cities across South Dakota soon.

Businesses interested in finding out more about the breastfeeding-friendly pledge can get information here.

Source: KDLT News