The new Baby Cafe at the Boston Medical Center isn't a spot to drink coffee or work on a laptop. Instead, it's a place where new moms and dads can get some often much-needed help.
"The Baby Cafe is an opportunity for an expecting parent or a parent of a newborn to drop in and receive information and support around breastfeeding," said Dr. Renee Boynton-Jarrett, MD, a pediatrician at BMC.
Parents can also attend a Baby Cafe to learn about infant attachment and bonding, social-emotional development, community resources and to simply connect with other new parents who are in similar situations, Boynton-Jarrett said.
The drop-in groups meet from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. every Tuesday on the fifth floor of the Yawkey building at 850 Harrison Ave. To Boynton-Jarrett, these groups are beneficial both to the babies as well as the parents.
"The beautiful thing about these free drop-in groups is that parents are experts to other parents, so it creates that social connection," she said. "Often, after people have babies it can be very socially isolating—there's lots of placed you can't go with a newborn, lots of things you can't do—so it's a place where you can connect with other parents. "
Boynton-Jarrett also leads the Vital Village Community Engagement Network at BMC, which works to support the well-being of every child by building avenues of community support. To her, the way parents share advice and support one another is essential to that well being of both the child and its parents.
[For more of this story, written by Kristin Toussaint, go to http://www.metro.us/boston/at-...piz---jGorJaLrNXATQ/]
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