Getting to Know Baby Café Bakersfield!

In honor of our upcoming fundraiser dinner, Celebrate Baby Café, we are taking a peek into what Baby Café Bakersfield is and how we serve our community.

Today, let’s talk history. Baby Café Bakersfield was opened in 2014 because our community had some significant gaps in breastfeeding care. The Baby Café model was chosen because it ensures that families who attend receive professional lactation care and peer support in a welcoming environment.

For a breastfeeding family, the importance of seeing other breastfeeding families cannot be overstated. To be around others who are experiencing the same learning curve, to watch people with babies older than yours put those babies to the breast, to sit next to another newly postpartum person and share your joys and fears - those things are so meaningful and so inspiring. But when a community has relatively low breastfeeding rates, as ours does, it can be hard to find a place to see others breastfeeding or to talk to other people who are meeting their own infant feeding goals.

For families experiencing early breastfeeding challenges (which are actually pretty common!), knowing that high-quality care is consistently available is absolutely priceless. Being able to arrive and leave anytime during the drop-in session makes Baby Café convenient and simple. Feeling confident that when you are there, a deeply experienced staff of lactation care providers, including IBCLCs and specially-trained lactation counselors, will be ready to assist you and provide evidence-based information is a real game-changer for families with questions or concerns.

We’re seeing the changes we hoped to see when we opened! Our biggest source of referrals is word-of-mouth, so we know that people who are breastfeeding are telling their friends, neighbors, and coworkers that Baby Café Bakersfield is a reliable place to get help and information about breastfeeding. We’re seeing families with their 2nd or 3rd Baby Café baby. We’re hearing from families that their pediatricians sent them for more breastfeeding help!

Most of all, we’re watching the couches fill up with incredibly loving and invested new mothers and fathers every time we are open. Grandmothers, aunts and aunties, friends, older siblings of the newborns - everyone shows up and everyone is welcome to ask questions and find out how they can help. It’s truly beautiful to watch and an honor to facilitate.

Thanks for your ongoing support and referrals! We can’t do this without you:)