Welcome!

Friends of La Leche League (formerly the LLL Alumnae Association) invites you to browse our site and learn more about our organization.

Let’s connect if you are:

  • an active or retired La Leche League Leader
  • a current or former La Leche League member
  • breastfeeding
  • a parent of a child from toddler to teen to adult
  • a grandparent
  • an advocate for breastfeeding!
To join or renew your membership, please click here.
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Record 2025 Mini-Grants Awarded!

Friends of La Leche League is thrilled to share the results of the 2025 Mini-Grants! This year we received a record number of applications — 50 — from all around the world. After careful review of each of the requests, the Mini-Grant Committee and the Friends of LLL Board approved thirteen outstanding projects for funding, awarding a record amount of $21,704! We are especially grateful for restricted donations to our Mini-Grants fund, which made these record awards possible.

This year we gave special consideration to projects that promote the new edition of The Art of Breastfeeding book, and about half of the awardees included plans for this. We are most excited that every one of the funded initiatives will help in fulfilling the Friends of La Leche League mission by supporting LLL Leaders and applicants, furthering breastfeeding education, and supporting breastfeeding babies and their families. We encourage you to visit our website Mini-Grants page to view short descriptions of each of the thirteen selected projects and review information about previous grant awards.

We thank this year’s Mini-Grants team — Lupe Forsang, Joan Crothers, and Nancy Blake Franklin — for volunteering their time to review all the applications, make grant recommendations, and follow up with the award winners as they execute their projects. All funded projects are scheduled to be completed within a calendar year, and we are looking forward to hearing more about each of these projects as the award-winners realize their program goals.

Join Us at a Friends of LLL Chat

Do you miss the sense of community you felt at LLL Series Meetings or Leader/Leader Applicant Days? Every month, members of Friends of La Leche League meet online for a discussion on an interesting topic in a warm, relaxed, and caring atmosphere.

Our Happy Hours are a popular benefit of membership, and a great way for members to get to know new people, stay in touch, and support each other. We welcome first-time participants to attend a Chat and see if they like it before joining Friends of LLL. Please contact Jo-Anne if you would like to volunteer to lead a discussion. Information about each month’s chat and details about how to register are published each month on our website News Page.

Honoring LLL Friends

For more than twenty years, Friends of La Leche League has honored deceased LLL Leaders through the “We Remember” program. Leaders are listed on our website by name and year of death. A ceremony in which the Leaders names are read was initiated at the 2001 LLL International Conference and has been held at conferences and Friends of LLL trips since then. To honor all deceased Leaders, we urge Friends who learn of the death of any LLL Leader to pass along information using this “We Remember” Form.

Friends of LLL also wants to honor all individuals who have inspired us. Our Tributes page includes personalized tributes honoring special people. Tributes are posted on our website for one year and included in Continuum magazine. You can write a tribute honoring someone important to you by using this form.

The “Honors” option on our main menu provides direct access to the “We Remember” and Tributes pages and forms. Friends of La Leche League is proud to honor those who have inspired us.

Membership

For $30 per year (or $75 for three years), Friends of La Leche League members receive our online newsletter Continuum. Members are also eligible for members’ events (like our monthly chats) and discounts on registration fees for Friends of La Leche League trips. To join or renew your membership, please join here.

Donations

Friends of La Leche League welcomes donations that fund our operations or specifically to support our Mini-Grants program. If you would like to make a donation, please donate here.

Tributes

Friends of La Leche League tributes provide you the opportunity to honor Friends, colleagues, family, mentors, or cherished friends. Tributes appear in our members’ newsletter, Continuum and are published on the website for one year. Please see our current tribute listings.

Annual tributes are just $20 each. If you wish to honor someone special to you, please make a tribute here.

YouTube Channel

Videos created by Friends of LLL can be viewed on the Friends of La Leche League YouTube channel which you can access here.

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Friends of La Leche League

1 hour ago

Friends of La Leche League
A new study of more than 2,000 new mothers receiving support from WIC found that those who were exclusively breastfeeding at one month had significantly lower odds of elevated postpartum depression symptoms, and that was true regardless of whether or not they had planned to exclusively breastfeed. The study also found that the majority of participants didn't meet their breastfeeding goals, underscoring just how much support matters.Baby-Friendly designated facilities follow the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding, an evidence-based framework shown to help families meet their feeding goals. Because when new parents get the support they need, the benefits extend well beyond feeding, to their emotional health and wellbeing too.đź”—Read the study: journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0340269đź”—Learn more about the Ten Steps: www.babyfriendlyusa.org/for-facilities/practice-guidelines/10-steps-and-international-code/#ProudToBeBabyFriendly #HospitalsMakingADifference #ExcellenceInMaternityCare #BFHI #BFUSA ... See MoreSee Less

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Friends of La Leche League

3 days ago

Friends of La Leche League
Try this by yourself or with your child, and tell us what you noticed.A great little practice.#mindfulness ... See MoreSee Less

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Friends of La Leche League

3 days ago

Friends of La Leche League
🚨🚨 BREAKING: Research catches up with physiology....Don't want to push for a long time in labor? Just don't push for a while and use gravity. Then you might end up pushing less than 15 minutes!Is purple pushing FINALLY on its way out? While many facilities and providers have stepped away from strong and forceful purple pushing, variations of it still exist. This often leaves parents pushing for 1, 2, or even 3 hours - especially in first births and with epidurals. Despite awareness of the fetal ejection reflex and birth being a normal physiological process, modern obstetrics left many believing we MUST push as soon as we reach full dilation. Yet this often leaves moms pushing for hours.Research from Besançon University Hospital, France looked at over 10,000 term singleton births. Their research concluded: Under a delayed pushing policy of up to 3 hours, active pushing remained less than 15 minutes, supporting high rates of spontaneous vaginal birth and potentially reducing the need for instrumental delivery.While there are occasional situations where directed pushing might be indicated (baby showing signs if distress, signs of cord compression, etc.), research is showing what midwives, many l&d nurses, and doulas have observed: birth needs patience. 👇🏽 Did you labor down or push as soon as you were fully dilated? Study below. #ididoula #doula #doulatraining #pregnancy #birth ... See MoreSee Less

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Friends of La Leche League

3 days ago

Friends of La Leche League
How to survive the newborn 6pm-10pm witching hour without absolutely losing your mind The 6–10pm stretch is when your baby decides the entire day was unacceptable and files a formal complaint about it using only their lungs.Nothing is wrong. And also everything feels wrong.They’re tired but won’t sleep. Hungry but mad about eating. Want to be held but also arch their back like they’re protesting being born. It’s not a puzzle you’re failing to solve. It’s just their nervous system glitching out at the end of the day.Here’s how you get through it without spiraling:Start the slowdown earlier than you think. Late afternoon is your warning shot. Lights lower. Fewer voices. No passing the baby around like a party favor. Evenings go better when you stop asking your baby to handle one more thing.Just accept you’re going to be sat down feeding a lot. They will act like they haven’t eaten all day even if you literally just fed them. It’s not a supply issue or a schedule problem. It’s them trying to regulate. Set yourself up like you’re about to be stuck there. Water, food, phone charger within reach. You are not getting up anytime soon.Move. A lot. Not in a cute way, in a “I’ve walked the same 12 steps for 45 minutes” way. Swaying, bouncing, pacing, wearing them. This is less about technique and more about endurance.If the energy in the house feels tight, go outside. Not because it magically fixes babies, but because it takes you out of the same four walls where things have been escalating for two hours.Turn on white noise and commit to it. Not soft spa music. I mean loud enough that you don’t hear every single cry echoing in your chest.Evenings are not for productivity right now. If dinner happens, great. If you eat a handful of something at 9:30 while holding a baby who is still mad, also great. Adjust the bar so you can actually clear it.If you have help, use it before you hit empty. Not when you’re already at the point where everything feels like too much.And some nights, none of it works. You’ll do everything “right” and they’ll still cry like they’ve had a long day at a job they didn’t apply for. That’s the part that gets people. It makes you feel like you missed something.You didn’t.If they’re fed, changed, and safe, you can put them down and take a minute. Not as a last resort. As a normal, allowed thing.This phase is loud and repetitive and kind of disorienting because it happens at the same time every night like your house is haunted. Then one day it just... doesn’t.Until then, you’re not fixing the evening. You’re just getting through it. And that’s the whole job right now. ... See MoreSee Less

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