Did you know that August is National  

Breastfeeding Awareness Month?

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends and promotes exclusive breastfeeding for babies - nothing other than mother's breast milk for the first six months of life. Yet, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 86% of expecting mothers plan to breastfeed but only 14% are actually able to exclusively breastfeed for the first six months.

      The hope of celebrating breastfeeding awareness is so that the conversation about breastfeeding and its benefits expand beyond the walls of health care and motherhood and promote breastfeeding normalcy in many spheres.  

(Click here to read about the many benefits of breastfeeding and other important links)

(Click here to read about MOMS Orange County Breastfeeding Education and Support Efforts)  

Summer Intern, Elaine Meigs, shares her reflections on MOMS Orange County.

I am what some call a "returning student".  After raising my two children, I decided to go back to school and complete my education, something I had always dreamed of doing.  As a Political Science major, I concentrated my studies in law, politics and public policy.  One of my policy classes focused on health care, and the challenge of delivering high quality affordable services to as many people as possible.  I learned how difficult and complicated this can be, and how competing interests often don't consider the consequences of their decision-making on real people every day. (Read entire story here)