So I was at a family celebration recently. One of my cousins was married and we had an informal and child-friendly reception at his farm to celebrate. Much fun was had by all, including my breastfeeding self. Anyone who knows me knows I live to breastfeed in public. It is my personal mission to promote a breastfeeding-friendly culture and force the naysayers to become well-adjusted about breastfeeding. Breast is best people, ya’ll best get used to it.

My daughter was only 5 months old at the time and is an exclusively breastfed-on-demand baby. Mid-afternoon she was rooting at the breast so I headed inside to find a cozy place to feed her. The living room was full of family, both my family and my cousin’s wife’s family. I saw an empty seat on the couch and plunked myself down ready to feed. A second later one of my cousins sat down beside me and started chatting, how are you doing, how is the baby, she is so cute; you know the typical new baby conversation. I was answering her questions, mentioned my daughter was hungry and started lifting up my shirt and unfastening my nursing bra.

Now my cousin is a pretty open woman, and I live to breastfeed in public so I really didn’t think anything of feeding my daughter on the couch. The other people in the room were comfortable when I had nursed my daughter earlier and well, this was my cousin, she knows me, or so I thought. As I brought my daughter up to the nipple and let her latch on my cousin quickly looked down with eyes wide, leaned away, then looked at me and said, “you’re not shy are you?” Honestly, what would you do in that situation? I looked back at her, laughed and very happily replied, “hell no, I live to breastfeed in public!”

I love family gatherings.

If you don’t yet know about the International Breastfeeding Symbol, it’s a good thing you are reading this! The International Breastfeeding Symbol is still very new, but the more we talk about it, display it and promote it, the more recognizable it will become.

Here’s some back story.

In the July-August 2006 issue of Mothering magazine (I love Mothering magazine!), Stephanie Ondrack wrote the article “Taking Down the Almighty Bottle” which highlighted the use of the of the baby bottle icon that is typically used to denote “nursing rooms” in public places all over North America. The article prompted Mothering’s Art Director, Laura Egley Taylor to ask if there was a universal breastfeeding symbol - there wasn’t. How that is even possible since we all know the best first food for babies is breast milk and it is also recommended by many different health organizations, I’m not sure, but an appropriate symbol just didn’t exist.

In response to this glaring oversight, Mothering magazine held a contest encouraging people to submit designs for the world’s first international breastfeeding symbol. In November 2006, after reviewing over 500 entries, the winning symbol was chosen. Matt Daigle is the graphic artist who submitted the winning design.

Now on to the website.

Inspired by Mothering magazine’s contest and the symbol itself, MamaBear, a mom from Texas decided the symbol needed its own website and she created www.breastfeedingsymbol.org.

If you haven’t been to www.breastfeedingsymbol.org, please check it out. Not only does it give you the full history of the symbol, you can download the International Breastfeeding Symbol to put on your website or blog, and learn more about breastfeeding, pumping and milk bank donations. You can also visit the International Breastfeeding Symbol blog to read about current breastfeeding news and other breastfeeding and parenting topics and visit the IBFS store to purchase a variety of goods with proudly bearing the symbol. You’ll be happy to know that a donation is made to a not-for-profit breastfeeding organization with your purchase.

So what are you waiting for, proudly show your support! Which reminds me… downloading the symbol now.