La Leche League of Indiana, Broad Ripple Group

Where and when: The second Friday of every month at 10:15 a.m. at the Glendale Library (62nd and Keystone). 2009 Meeting Dates

Who: Our meetings are open to all women who are interested in breastfeeding. It is very useful to attend a meetings before your baby is born.  Children are welcome. Dads are invited to our February, June, and October meetings.

Why attend? Check out this article on Why LLL? Being in touch with our nursing mothers is a tremendous value. The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding describes it this way:

No book about breastfeeding can equal talking to an experienced nursing mother and seeing her happy baby. When you know a woman who enjoys being a nursing mother, you have access to a continuing source of information and inspiration. It is our hope that you can join with other mothers and together find the satisfaction and support that we have known. The best place we know of to receive this mother-to-mother support is at your local La League Group. Attending LLL meeetings during pregnancy is the ideal preparation for breastfeeding and a good way to learn what being a mother is all about.

Meeting Topics

At our monthly support meetings, we discuss practical, physical, and psychological aspects of breastfeeding, centered around some broad themes:

• Breastfeeding: The Healthy Choice

• At Home With Your New Baby

• Art of Breastfeeding & Avoiding Difficulties

• Nutrition & Weaning

What happens at LLL meetings? Our meetings are attended by pregnant women and women with babies and toddlers of a range of ages. We sit in a circle and babies crawl or toddle around. You’ll see lots of nursing going on. [Our meetings are a low-stress place to practice nursing in public].

Our meetings are led by volunteer La Leche League Leaders, who are experienced breastfeeding mothers who have been accredited by La Leche League to provide breastfeeding support. Leaders are familiar with breastfeeding management and current breastfeeding research. They will be happy to answer your questions at meetings (or by phone or email).

At each meeting, we take the time to discuss everyone’s breastfeeding-related questions. Each month we discuss a different breastfeeding-related topic. For example, one recent month we discussed “There’s a new baby in your life. How do you: Take a shower? Cook dinner? Sleep? Use a public restroom? Check your email? Get exercise?”

La Leche League is a great place to make friends with other mothers. There’s usually someone with a baby that is the same age as yours, who you can connect with in a unique way. There’s also usually someone whose baby is a little older who will give you the sense of what’s to come, and someone whose baby is a little younger to give you the sense of how much your baby has already grown and changed.

Here is a video of a La Leche League meeting (not our group) on YouTube.

Lending Library At our meetings you can borrow books from our extensive lending library, with titles about breastfeeding, pregnancy and childbirth, parenting, and nutrition.

Buy a book: At our meetings you can buy a copy of the Womanly Art of Breastfeeding or other favorite books from our library.

Enrichment meetings: If you’re looking for more ways to connect with other nursing mothers, consider coming to one of our monthly enrichment meetings held on the third Friday of every month at 9:30 a.m. at the Bethlehem Lutheran Church (Summer location:  Canterbury Park).  At each enrichment meeting, we discuss a topic beyond the basics of breastfeeding, such as nursing a toddler, gentle discipline, spacing your children, finding time for yourself, nighttime parenting, and more.  But mostly, enrichment meetings are a place to relax, enjoy food, and get to know each other better.