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Breastival Celebrates Support & Community T his year marks the 10th anniversary of Colorado’s Breastival, a festival celebrating families and community. The Breastival is put on by the Colorado Breastfeeding Coalition, a nonprofit organization that started back in 1990 to advocate for breastfeeding laws, educate professionals and families, and provide community events and support. This year’s Breastival took place on August 1 at Central Park in Denver. It featured over 50 vendors providing education and support to families along with ways to celebrate such as a bounce house, face painters, a balloon artist, henna, and a DJ. Education and Celebration The Breastival started in 2016 after a group of moms gathered to take new photos for the Coalition’s website and celebrate World Breastfeeding Week (held every August 1-7). Someone brought up the idea of food trucks for all the moms, and that snowballed into a bounce house for the toddlers, and friends in BY AMELIA ROESSLER A Decade of Community:
Colorado Breastfeeding Coalition The Colorado Breastfeeding Coalition was started to work on advocacy and policy with the state for breastfeeding laws, educate professionals and families, and provide community events. breastfeeding-friendly environments can improve breastfeeding outcomes. Halverstadt says the organization will continue working to expand those supports across the state. One of the most common misconceptions about breastfeeding is that it should come naturally and be easy from the start, according to Halverstadt. While breastfeeding is biologically normal, it is also a learned skill for both parent and baby and often takes several weeks to become well established. Research shows that access to education, peer support, and In Colorado, moms want and choose to breastfeed, with over 90 percent of moms initiating breastfeeding each year, according to the CDC data. However, by six months, that number drops to just over 70 percent and by 12 months only 53 percent continue breastfeeding. The World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend breastfeeding for two years for the baby’s immune system to keep them healthy and prevent them from getting sick. But Halverstadt says the flip side of that is, how do you prevent breast cancer? How do you prevent heart attacks? How do you decrease postpartum depression and anxiety?
professional areas to come and talk to these families. “For many first-time moms, one of the big roadblocks to feeling successful in motherhood and breastfeeding is knowing where to find help, so that is the core mission, besides celebrating all these families,” says Katie Halverstadt, the chair of the Colorado Breastfeeding Coalition. Whether new parents are doing Google searches, watching social media, and trying to find what is going to help them that’s closer to home, Halverstadt knows there are barriers to finding support. One of the biggest breastfeeding challenges families in Colorado face is balancing infant feeding goals with the realities of returning to work, according to Halverstadt. While Colorado’s FAMLI program provides paid family leave, she explains that many parents are unaware of the benefit or mistakenly believe they are not eligible.
8 COLORADO PARENT AUGUST 2026
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