Center for Family Strengthening receives $8,000 grant
Centre for Family Strengthening SLO.
Grant will help support the Central Coast Breastfeeding Coalition
–The Center for Family Strengthening recently received an $8,000 grant from the Community Foundation San Luis Obispo County on behalf of the Central Coast Breastfeeding Coalition. This grant will be used to improve the breastfeeding rates of mothers with premature infants who are discharged from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center. The centre is among 30 recipients with the grants totaling $228,800.
Through the grant the Central Coast Breastfeeding Coalition will provide internationally board certified lactation consultants to identify, connect and educate mothers of premature infants and to promote successful breastfeeding after a mother leaves the hospital. The grant fills the gap between the hospital and home and provides much-needed support.
Breast milk is not only nourishment but is also medicine for premature infants. It contains antibodies, disease-fighting stem cells, anti-virus, anti-allergy, anti-parasitic, and anti-cancer properties that provide both short and long-term protection. Breast milk contains growth factors, enzymes, hormones, probiotics and other nutrients that help infants to grow and to develop optimally. Breastfeeding provides benefits to the mother with increased bonding with baby, better healing post-delivery, less incidence of postpartum depression, and decreased likelihood of developing breast or ovarian cancer.
The Center for Family Strengthening provides non-profit fiscal management services, disbursement of payments to the lactation consultants, and with the Central Coast Breastfeeding Coalition, tracks breastfeeding rates, outcomes and completion of reports.
In the past 16 years, the foundation has given out more than $28 million in grants to assist nonprofit agencies in San Luis Obispo County.
