Kempsey District Hospital Maternity Unit has been using a special photo display board and children's colouring-in competition to empower and encourage local women to breastfeed their babies, coinciding with World Breastfeeding Week.
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World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated around the world at the beginning of August to encourage breastfeeding which improves the health of babies and mothers.
Kempsey District Hospital Clinical Midwifery Educator Broni Brenton said the Maternity Unit staff had created a photo display in the Antenatal Clinic of photos of women in the community proudly breastfeeding their babies.
"By seeing other women in our community breastfeeding, we hope expectant mothers will feel empowered to breastfeed themselves," Broni said.
"When fathers, partners, families, workplaces, and communities support a mother to breastfeed, breastfeeding rates improve.
"We can all promote and support breastfeeding, it really is a team effort," Broni said.
Midwife Margaret Binskin said Kempsey District Hospital Maternity Unit holds a free breastfeeding class every six weeks that all expectant mothers are invited to attend.
During these classes, we outline the benefits of breastfeeding to mother and baby, the normal behaviour of a breastfed baby as well as offering extra resources to assist expectant mothers to gain confidence in initiating and maintaining breastfeeding," Margaret said.
The Maternity Unit is also running a colouring in competition for children. The childrens' work will be displayed in the Antenatal Clinic alongside the photo display and will be judged at the end of August. Colouring in sheets can be picked up from and dropped back to the Kempsey District Hospital Maternity Unit.
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