WIC Peer Counselors Provide Healthful Choice in Florida
This is a great article from Hernando County, where peer counselors are coming on board to help breastfeeding moms. We already have peer counselors in Escambia County and are getting them in our surrounding counties in the near future!
Healthful choice
Peer counselors offer new moms breastfeeding help
By ANNA LAMY | Hernando Today
Published: July 29, 2010
Health officials say breastfeeding a newborn is the most effective way to start off a child on the right track to a healthier adult life.
In a recent mandate, all counties in Florida are required to have a peer counseling program in place for breastfeeding support and encouragement.
Hernando County ranks about 10 percent below the state average of 77.6 percent for mothers who initiate breastfeeding to their infant.
Hernando has not had a peer counseling program in place in recent years.
In contrast, Miami-Dade has been in practice with a breastfeeding support program and is ranked about 10 percent higher than the state average.
Thanks to a new grant, Hernando County Health Department, Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program will soon have more local peer counselors for breastfeeding available to new moms in the area.
The Breastfeeding Peer Counselor program offers local moms, training to become peers with the ability to help and influence mothers in a way health professionals cannot.
The counselors take a 20-hour course that includes training in breastfeeding basics, counseling skills and an emphasis on the role of being a peer counselor, making referrals for circumstances outside the realm of normal breastfeeding.
Mary Becker, an international board certified lactation consultant, serves as the training director for the Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Program in Hernando and Pasco counties, said most moms need basic information and support regarding breastfeeding.
She said they are currently training 12 peer counselors for Hernando County… (continued)
To see this whole article, click here.