by Amy Spangler
August 06, 2009

In recognition of World Breastfeeding Week, a provocative new advertisement was recently released by Best for Babes.

The eye-catching ad is a visual pun with a serious message reflective of this year’s World Breastfeeding Week theme: Breastfeeding, A Vital Emergency Response.

Best for Babes co-founders Bettina Forbes and Danielle Rigg maintain that women are being pressured to breastfeed yet prevented from doing so.

“Moms don’t need more pressure, judgment, or guilt,” says Forbes, who initially did not want to breastfeed. “It’s the cultural and institutional barriers—or ‘booby traps’—that are keeping moms from making informed decisions, and preventing those moms who want to breastfeed from achieving their personal breastfeeding goals,” says Rigg, who ran a successful lactation counseling practice.

What are the barriers?

“Last year, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that most U.S. hospitals actually thwart breastfeeding. Add social disapproval, fear of nursing in public, insufficient insurance coverage for lactation services and supplies, and the beguiling and shameless promotion of infant formula, and you begin to get the full picture of how moms and babies are being thrown overboard,” asserts Forbes.

“The U.S. has inadequate maternity leave policies. While many employers offer smoking breaks, too few offer pumping breaks or lactation rooms, and breastfeeding women are not protected from being discriminated against or fired,” explains Rigg.

The new ad will run in the Fall/Winter issue of Mom & Baby and online through The Family Groove. The ad is part of a compelling campaign developed pro bono by Frank About Women, the nation’s leading marketing-to-women communications firm.

Leading breastfeeding experts and celebrities who have endorsed the campaign include Ruth Lawrence, M.D., Founder of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine and Chair of the Breastfeeding Section of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Joan Meek, M.D. Chair of the United States Breastfeeding Committee, actress and best-selling author Marilu Henner, and athlete and author Gabrielle Reece.

Best for Babes offers breastfeeding inspiration, help for moms who don’t want to breastfeed, an indispensable checklist for expectant moms, and important information about navigating the “booby traps.”