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Julie Crawford Award for Breastfeeding Support 2004

Press release: 22 October 2004

The Award was set up by the Baby Feeding Law Group, the ad-hoc group of professional and lay organisations, including the CPHVA, Royal College of Midwives, Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. The BFLG is working to remove halt the commercial promotion of artificial infant feeding in the UK by bringing UK legislation into line with UN Resolutions.

7 nominations from parents were receive for the 2004 Julie Crawford Award for Breastfeeding Support: Elizabeth Capon (Leyland/Lostock Hall Lancashire), Deana Vearncombe (Fylde), Chris Mitchell (Gloucester), Rachael Windsor (Preston), Linda Masterson (Bedford) , Marion McPhillips (Glasgow) and Veronica Matthews (East Grinstead).

The Winner for 2004 is: Deanna Vearncombe from Fylde PCT.

The judging panel, was extremely impressed with the quality and number of applicants for this year’s Award, the second since its establishment. Deanna Vearncombe fulfilled the criteria by not only making a significant contribution to breastfeeding support in the UK, but also demonstrating commitment to ensuring that parents rights to independent information is assured and that they are protected from commercial influence.

There were three runners up: Elizabeth Capon, Chris Mitchell and Rachael Windsor.

The Award was presented by Gail Cartmail, Head of Health, AMICUS at the CPHVA Conference in Harrogate.

The Judges:

• Patti Rundall OBE, Policy Director, Baby Milk Action

• Magda Sachs, MA (Cantab), Breastfeeding Supporter, Breastfeeding Network

• Obi Amadi, Lead Professional Officer, (Health Visiting) CPHVA

Background

In November 2001, Julie Crawford died from a rare disease, at the age of 42. Julie was a health visitor and a former Director of Baby Milk Action. She cared passionately about breastfeeding and was never frightened to stand up and fight for the rights of mothers to independent and sensitive care. Julie was especially concerned about the extent of industry funding of education for health professionals and was also keen to push for legal action in defence of mother?s rights to breastfeed. (she would have loved the SMA case).

She was one of the first health visitors to participate in the International Breastfeeding Course at the Institute of Child Health (self funded since employers could not find the resources). In 1992, she wrote in the JBI newsletter about the barriers to breastfeeding support from within the health visiting and midwifery professions -- where so many had not had adequate training and so many had not had adequate support for their own breastfeeding experiences and the chance to discuss the feelings this left them with: "there is no safe forum in which to reach some understanding". Julie also noted that "many health professionals endorse expectations of infant behaviour which damage breastfeeding" and called for "articulate voices" to promote change for mothers and for health professionals.

In memory of Julie, Baby Milk Action wished to set up an annual award to be given to a health visitor who showed the qualities Julie called for.

The first award was given to Gill Rapley in November 2003. Gill worked as a health visitor for many years, was also trained as a voluntary counsellor, and is now employed by UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative. Gill is in the middle of completing an MA, during the course of which she undertook a research project on 'baby-led weaning'. Gill's focus on extending the continuum of baby-led feeding exemplified by breastfeeding into late feeding deserves to have a revolutionary impact on how we understand the introduction of complementary foods to babies in the UK.