Pandemic Program Earns Baby Café Bakersfield Award
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
29 July 2021
Baby Café Bakersfield is extremely proud to announce that they have been awarded the prestigious IBCLC Care Award by the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners. This marks the 3rd time the organization has received this recognition.
This global award recognizes Baby Café Bakersfield for its excellence in staffing International Board Certified Lactation Consultants (IBCLCs) and for conducting activities that demonstrate the promotion, protection, and support of breastfeeding.
We are especially pleased that this award was given in recognition of the Connect program, which was developed as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions on in-person gatherings. “When COVID-19 shut down our ability to meet with mothers and families in person, we knew we couldn’t just disappear from the breastfeeding support scene. We also knew that breastfeeding support services in the hospital would be minimized as postpartum patients would be moved through quickly to minimize their exposures to the virus. With the health and safety of pregnant people, new babies and their parents, and our own staff as the highest priority, our Board met virtually to determine the best way to continue providing high-quality lactation care and services with the limitations we faced, and we created a brand-new way that we would probably never have considered before!” explains Christine Staricka, Baby Café Bakersfield’s Director.
The Connect program is a pathway for pregnant and new parents to request to be connected with a lactation care provider when they need it. The program is completely free and open to any parent in Kern County. They fill out a simple online form to request to be Connected (you can see that form here), and they receive a call, text, or email from a lactation care provider within 12-24 hours. That gives them a person they can reach out to whenever they have an issue. There is also a phone number which receives text messages and voicemails where individuals can request to Connect. “With these options, today’s parents are able to communicate in the ways they prefer, and they know they can rely on the Connection they have made to lactation support,” Christine says. “When someone Connects with us before their baby is born, we sometimes even hear from them while they are still in the hospital recovering from birth! It’s been a fantastic way to build relationships and ensure the continuity of care in lactation that is often lacking in our community.” Sometimes parents need more than just a conversation or a text, and that’s where virtual consultations come in. Baby Café Bakersfield staff have access to a secure platform on which to conduct virtual lactation consultations with new parents, as well as hosting a virtual Baby Café meeting each week on Zoom. All services provided by Baby Café Bakersfield are free to parents and the organization is operated solely on donations from the community.
“While we anxiously await the day when it is again safe and advisable for us to meet in person, we are thrilled that this program has secured the accessibility of IBCLC care to families in our community. Like so much else about our lives today, we could not have imagined that this is how we would be providing care right now - but it’s so worth it to see how we have been able to improve care and continue to reach new people every day,” says Christine. “In fact, we are currently on track to see the same number of new parents needing care this year as we have in previous years when all of our care was provided in person.”
Baby Café Bakersfield will continue to be listed in the global directory of IBCLC Care Award recipients at http://www.ibclccare.org/directory.html. Baby Café Bakersfield has also received this award 2 times previously.
The Director of Baby Café Bakersfield is Christine Staricka, BS, IBCLC, RLC, CE
She can be reached via email at ChristineStaricka@BabyCafeBakersfield.org.
Baby Café Bakersfield is a project of Lactation Matters, Inc., a 501(c)3 non profit organization committed to serving local individuals who provide lactation care in Kern County.