New Beginnings Baby Café Open House Set for Aug. 23

  • August 08, 2022

To celebrate National Breastfeeding Month, New Beginnings Baby Café will hold an open house “birthday party” from 4 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 23. The event will take place outdoors in the picnic area just west of Brookings Hospital’s ER entrance. Cupcakes and punch will be served.

As a Baby-Friendly® designated hospital, Brookings Health System established New Beginnings Baby Café in 2015 to give free support to breastfeeding mothers in all aspects of nursing, from starting to weaning and every variation in between.

IBCLC Lactation Consultant Aleycia Gerlach, RN, and Certified Lactation Counselor Nancy DeBoer, RN, meet with mothers during Baby Café sessions on Tuesdays from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Prairie Perk Up Coffee Shop, located inside Brookings Hospital. Mothers who attend Baby Café can weigh-feed-weigh their babies to measure how much their infants drink in one feeding. In addition, Gerlach and DeBoer record the babies’ weights to chart growth.

New Beginning Baby Café is currently the only Baby Café session in South Dakota registered with Baby Café USA. More information about New Beginnings Baby Café and Brookings Health System’s OB unit can be found at brookingshealth.org/OB.

About Brookings Health System

Brookings Health System, located in Brookings, South Dakota, includes a 49-bed hospital, the 79-bed The Neighborhoods at Brookview nursing home, Brookhaven Estates senior living apartments, Yorkshire Eye Clinic & Optical, and medical clinics in Arlington, White and Volga, South Dakota. It is a non-profit, city-owned facility that offers the community a full range of inpatient, outpatient, emergency and extended care services. Brookings Hospital provides local access to doctors in Brookings and offers robotic da Vinci surgery and Mako robotic-arm assisted procedures, making it one of the premier rural community hospitals in South Dakota. For more information about the services offered at Brookings Health System, please call (605) 696-9000 or visit us on the Web at brookingshealth.org.