"Remember the first time you laid your eyes on your newborn? You promised to give only the best to her. You were determined to breastfeed. But a few days after birth, her constant cries got you very nervous. Did you have milk? Why did your breasts feel hard but nothing is coming out? Your worried family can't bear to see your baby crying. They insist that your baby be given formula to get her out of danger. You agreed heavy heartedly. You didn't know who to turn to. Nobody told you that the early days could be so challenging."
Sounds familiar?
The Breastfeeding Advocates Network (TBAN) is a registered society and an online support group for breastfeeding in Facebook. Established in September 2009, we have grown to almost 65,000 members and are currently receiving more than 100 new members daily. Majority of our members are from Malaysia, while we also have members from all over the world like Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Germany and USA, just to mention a few.
Mummies and daddies receive help and support in the group to breastfeed their babies. When the need arise they may receive home visits from qualified Breastfeeding Peer Counselors in the group. Our aim is to educate the modern parents on breastfeeding and to normalize breastfeeding. We have frequently been asked by members why they don’t see advertisements or promotions on breastfeeding especially about support groups like TBAN. Many lamented if they have known about TBAN earlier, they would have an easier time breastfeeding their babies with the support they received.
We too felt that there is no Malaysian-made video promoting the goodness of breastfeeding and to raise awareness on this topic. Thus, we decided to take it upon ourselves to do it. In our continued efforts to spread awareness of breastfeeding to the public, our key project for 2015 is to launch our inaugural Breastfeeding AD – The Father’s Love, with the goal to inspire breastfeeding initiatives beyond mothers.
“Dads, remember when you first laid eyes on your baby? You promised to give him the best. You supported your wife when she said she wanted to breastfeed. All she wanted to eat, you went out of your way to get for her. But when you watched her struggle, you almost broke too. She cried when the baby cried. Baby won't latch and her breasts were so full with milk, she was in so much pain. You didn't know where to look for help. You knew you have to do something! Upon the insistence of your family, you bought a can of formula milk. Afterall, your mom said you were fed with formula milk and you turned out okay.”
Sounds familiar?
This is what we see happening everyday as Breastfeeding counsellors. We realized the awareness on Breastfeeding in the mainstream media is still so low that panicked parents and grandparents turn to formula before turning to Breastfeeding experts. Why is this so? Formula milk companies spent millions of dollars yearly in advertising and marketing of their products. And they are VERY effective. This account for the very low breastfeeding rates in most countries including Malaysia.
This first ever MALAYSIAN BREASTFEEDING AD will be filmed in English with Malay subtitles, and it will be aired via social media, and hopefully via television airtime to reach out to those who do not have access to the internet.
We will heed your call and make this dream a reality, and most importantly, we NEED YOUR HELP AND SUPPORT. Since last year, we have been working closely with CREATIVE JUICE, an advertising agency in the creation of this BREASTFEEDING AD. Our team members for this special project include the 4 admins of TBAN, Ayuni Zainuddin, Eva Liew and Connie Goh. We are now at the stage of raising funds for the production cost of USD65,000.
We hope that you can be part of this milestone by pledging either USD5, USD10, USD50 or more. Your support will be greatly appreciated. We and all the breasfed babies and future babies you will be indirectly supporting thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
In the event that we fall short of the targeted fund (we hope not because we really want to realize this ad), the total collected fund, which we will declare, will be appropriately use for other grassroot breastfeeding initiatives to normalize breastfeeding and support the community in Malaysia. Thank you so much for your support.
Please visit our open Group here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheBreastfeedin...
ps/- an image of the quotation from the ad agency can be found in the GALLERY
