Nurse-In At City Hall: "There Is Nothing Wrong With Feeding Your Child"

Enumclaw resident Kim Lauk had a hungry baby in her arms one day. She was about to go to a back room to breastfeed the baby, when her husband stopped her.

“Why should you have to leave?” he said. “You’re not doing anything wrong.”

Now Lauk, with three young children, is helping mothers everywhere understand this. She is planning a nurse-in, Mommies Helping Mommies, to raise awareness and support for breastfeeding mothers on Aug. 2, as part of Breastfeeding Awareness Week. She hopes the event will be a source of education for moms, as well as destigmatizing public breastfeeding.

“I want my friends who are new moms to come and say it was really informative, so they can invite their pregnant friends next year,” Lauk said.

In addition to the public nursing, Mommies Helping Mommies will include a raffle with proceeds for low-income families with at-risk babies, mostly premature ones, to help get them the breast milk they need but aren’t always able to afford.

“When you have your baby at 27 weeks, you can have a hard time getting your supply up enough to feed them,” Lauk said. “Those babies need breast milk more than any of them. Formula doesn’t always give them everything they need.”

The Mother’s Milk Cooperative allows women to donate extra breast milk they have to these at-risk babies. Lauk has done this herself and still keeps in touch with the woman who received her donation.

Lauk also hopes the nurse-in will become an annual event, with midwives, doulas and lactation consultants coming to speak to the women and help them get through any difficulties they may have with breastfeeding.

“It’s to educate moms on the things that can go wrong and the nursing hurdles that we face, and how to get over and past them,” she said.