The vast majority of Breastfeeding 1-2-3 readers are from the United States, with nearly 10 times as many visitors from the U.S. than from the second country on the list. Can you guess what the next four countries are? I will give you a little hint:

The next four countries are:

2. Canada
3. United Kingdom
4. India
5. Australia

I have been talking a lot about breastfeeding advocacy opportunities in the United States, so tonight I would like to share a breastfeeding advocacy opportunity for each of the other four countries listed. Please feel free to leave a comment if you are from any of those four countries and you have resources you would like to share!

Canada

“Join INFACT Canada and INFACT Quebec and sign on to the ‘Protect Breastfeeding Petition’ at http://protectbreastfeedingpetition.ca/. You can make a difference for mothers and children, sign the petition, share the petition and join us for a better world for all of us.”

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom you can read and sign the Breastfeeding Manifesto, an eight-page document that outlines seven objectives that support breastfeeding. The Manifesto notes:

The UK Governments and the World Health Organization (WHO) recommend that babies be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life, yet fewer than 2% of babies in the UK are exclusively breastfed at six months.

India

The Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India works to protect, promote and support breastfeeding in that country. You can endorse your views on an infant’s right to food by entering your name and email address.

Australia

The Australian Breastfeeding Association has a page dedicated to breastfeeding advocacy which includes a link to the incident report form for the marketing of infant formulas in Australia.

Love, love, love this WPA Federal Art Project poster by artist Erik Hans Krause, circa 1936-1938. It’s all still true: “Nurse the Baby: Your Protection against Trouble.”

Remember back in March when I wrote to Dear Abby about the fact that A Bathroom is Not a Pumping Room? My response was not selected for printing but today’s Dear Abby column is entirely dedicated to other helpful replies: Employer Obliged to Give New Mom a Private Space.

I especially liked that the responses included a reference to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services information booklet: “A Business Case for Breastfeeding: Steps for Creating a Breastfeeding Friendly Worksite: Easy Steps to Supporting Breastfeeding Employees.” (PDF Download).

I must be on a breastfeeding letter-writing kick because last night I spent three hours writing emails to every state breastfeeding coalition and 45 breastfeeding bloggers to make sure they’re aware of some of the available tools to support the Breastfeeding Promotion Act of 2009, such as the super easy fill-in form online to ask state representatives and senators to co-sponsor the bill, and the Facebook group to spread the word about the bill. Back to my regular programming tomorrow, I promise, because I’m due to update about how breastfeeding is going with my baby who just turned 11 months old!

Calling all United States readers! It only takes 60 seconds to use this easy tool from the United States Breastfeeding Committee (USBC) to ask your representatives and senators to co-sponsor the Breastfeeding Promotion Act of 2009. Simply type in your name and address including zip code+4 and the USBC does the rest! Here are more details in an email you can forward to ask your friends to use the tool as well. Read more

Whether or not you live in the United States, please take a moment to join the Facebook group I created in support of the Breastfeeding Promotion Act of 2009.

This is the fifth time this bill has been up for consideration in Congress and it needs a strong show of support for passage in this 111th Congress! Please help spread the word through Facebook, Twitter, and any breastfeeding groups to which you belong! If you live in the United States, please consider writing to your representatives and senators to ask them to co-sponsor the bill. We need a groundswell of support to get this legislation passed!

The Breastfeeding Promotion Act of 2009 was introduced on June 11, 2009. Now is the time to take action to support HR2819 / S1244 by writing to your state representatives and senators to ask them to co-sponsor the bill. In addition to the original sponsors Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York and Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, 10 representatives and one senator co-sponsor the bill as of June 17, 2009: Reps. Capps, Olver, and Frank of Massachusetts, Reps. Roybal-Allard, Levin, and Meeks of New York, and Reps. Kaptur, Snyder, Schwartz, and Moran of Virginia, and Senator Gillibrand of New York.

You can look up the contact information for your representatives and senators and use the following sample letter or your own draft to write to your representatives and senators to ask them to co-sponsor the Breastfeeding Promotion Act (HR2819 / S1244). I have adapted this sample letter from the advocacy kit provided by the District of Columbia Breastfeeding Coalition for the 2007 Act. Read more

Nursing mothers have Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) to thank for her tireless attempts to see a Breastfeeding Promotion Act passed in Congress. Last Thursday Representative Maloney and Senator Jeff Merkley announced the introduction of the Breastfeeding Promotion Act of 2009 (H.R. 2819 / S. 1244).

Incredibly, this is the fifth time the Act has been up for consideration. Representative Maloney spoke to a crowd of nursing mothers on Capitol Hill:

This bill is needed now more than ever, as moms head back to work earlier than ever during this recession. I hope that with Senator Merkley’s good efforts, we can get this bill to the President.

You can see the full text of the Breastfeeding Promotion Act of 2009 (H.R. Bill 2819) online. Representative Maloney summarizes it as follows:

This bill will bring breastfeeding mothers under the protection of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, require employers with over 50 employees to provide a private space and unpaid time off during the workday for mothers to express milk, and sets standards for breast pump manufacture. It also provides for tax incentives for employers that establish private lactation areas in the workplace and tax credits for nursing mothers.

Senator Merkley, who championed a workplace breastfeeding bill in Oregon two years ago, is now behind legislation at the federal level.

It’s not every day we have the opportunity to enact legislation that is so clearly a win-win for families and our nation. Making it easier for moms to breastfeed means we have healthier babies, stronger families and happier workers

Kudos to Senator Merkley for being the first congressperson to sponsor the bill in the Senate!

What can you do to see that the fifth time is the charm? Write to your state’s elected officials in Congress and urge them to support the Breastfeeding Promotion Act of 2009 (HR 2819)!

The World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) has announced the 10 winners of its annual breastfeeding photo contest. This year the contest centered around the 2009 theme of “Breastfeeding: A Vital Emergency Response. Are You Ready?”

The photos are fascinating but heart-wrenching in some cases, like the image of the woman who was a victim of domestic violence. Here I am grateful to be nursing my baby through a simple case of Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease, and there are women breastfeeding in relief camps, in war zones, in areas severely damaged by an earthquake. You can view all of the photos in WABA’s 2009 World Breastfeeding Week Action folder (large PDF download), or you can view them temporarily on the WABA WBW home page.

I am not someone who believes that breastfeeding ought to be done in private. However, if an establishment is going to offer a quiet place for a mother to take her baby should she so choose, then this is the type of sign I like to see — this sign from Taipei, Taiwan, that calls it a “breastfeeding room” and does not use the image of a baby bottle. Sure, babies fed by bottle can use such a room too, but it is better not to make a bottle the universal symbol for feeding babies.

Can one person make a difference? Does one more phone call to a state senator tip the scales in favor of a piece of legislation? When I received an email message urging me to call my California state legislators to support a breastfeeding bill, I contemplated those questions.

Political activism is important to me. Breastfeeding is important to me. So I took a few minutes to read the bill, SB 257, which would require state entities to inform pregnant employees about the existing California law that requires workplace lactation accommodation. After all, what use is the protection if women are unaware of their rights? Then, I (overcame my irksome phone phobia and) called the numbers for two state senators. All it took was 30 seconds per call to leave the following simple message:

As a member of the Breastfeeding Task Force of Greater Los Angeles, I urge you to support SB 257 (Pavley-Employee Notification/Lactation Accommodation) which will be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday, April 27.

I got the good news today that the bill passed in the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday! So, did my one voice make a difference? Maybe, maybe not. All I know is it felt great to stand up for something I believe in. Better to take five minutes (even if my preschooler *destroyed* her clothing by making a mud puddle with the hose while I was on the phone) and feel great, than to remain silent and risk that the bill might not receive enough support.