Castlegar City Hall has added a new piece of furniture to its decor — a red leather chair.
As part of National Breastfeeding Week, City Hall was host to a travelling red chair that made its way around to local businesses that wanted to show their support for breastfeeding or chestfeeding and their willingness to give parents a safe and comfortable place to feed their children.
The chair inspired city councillor Deb McIntosh to add a permanent red chair to City Hall.
“We did it because we wanted to let the community know that City Hall is a safe place for people — it is the people’s place,” said McIntosh.
The chair will be available whenever City Hall is open, including events such as Winterfest.
Lauren Andres is the coordinator of drop-in programs at Kootenay Family Place, including the Beautiful Beginnings group for new parents. One of the things she hears from moms in the group is that they experience negative looks and comments when they are trying to feed their babies in public around town.
“That is what lit the fire to really do something for National Breastfeeding Week this year and to try and make our town a little more comfortable and to re-normalize this very normal way of feeding babies,” said Andres.
She reports that Castlegar has a high number of new moms that start out breastfeeding, but that the numbers drop of pretty quickly because, “We don’t have a lot of support available, or people don’t feel comfortable, or they don’t feel like they have community support.”
“Just having someone to call can make a huge difference,” said Andres.
The idea of the travelling chair was to show that breastfeeding was welcome. “One of the things about breastfeeding successfully is eliminating stress. If you are uncomfortable, the minute you begin to feel uptight, that can lead to some problems,” explained Andres.
Andres also emphasized that partners of breastfeeding parents can be a tremendous support. “Being on board, being positive, saying, “You are doing great,” putting a glass of water beside them, massaging their shoulders — those things are really helpful. They say, “Thank you for doing this for our child and I’m here with you.”
Breastfeeding support is currently available through Interior Health at the Castlegar Health Centre on Wednesdays from 1-2:30 p.m. You can call 250-365-7711 for more information.
The La Leche League meets in Nelson once a month but offers support on an individual basis. Contact numbers for phone support can be found on the organization’s webpage lllc.ca/lllc-nelson.
Beautiful Beginnings meets at the Kootenay Family Place on Tuesdays from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Andres also encourages anyone who needs some help with breastfeeding to stop by KFP and talk with her on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays.