Louth woman is named Breastfeeding Advocate of the Year 2024

Jennifer, who is a founder of Breastival, the annual Belfast event set up to promote breastfeeding in Northern Ireland, beat a competitive field of Irish and international nominees who have all made significant positive impacts on breastfeeding in Ireland.

Jennifer, who is originally from Bellurgan Point and now lives in Belfast with her husband and three children, works at the Centre for Research and Excellence in Belfast.

Her advocacy for promoting breast feeding dates back to 2016 when she was involved in organising the first Breastival which has become an annual event.

She was breastfeeding her two-week old daughter Eimear in July 2016 when she turned on the news to hear breastfeeding mums being branded ‘exhibitionists’.

East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson had caused shock waves when he described women who wanted to breastfeed in the House of Commons as ‘exhibitionists’ saying the practice should be done in private.

Jennifer was horrified by the tone of the debate which followed and then discovered that Northern Ireland has some of the lowest rates of breast feeding in the world.

“At the time there were a lot of negative comments around breastfeeding coming from politicians and also articles about how women who were breastfeeding were being asked to move on and cover up.”

Jennifer, who was breastfeeding her daughter Eimear at the time, decided that something must be done to help women feel confident about breastfeeding in public, and was among a small group of women who organised that first gathering that became Breastival

The first event took place outside City Hall as part of the ‘Big Latch On’, a global initiative which aims at promoting breast feeding by bringing mothers and families together.

“It proved so successful that we got funding from the public health agency in Northern Ireland the following year, and from starting out as a small gathering, it has grown and grown. It the first year 500 people showed up and it has got bigger and bigger ever since.”

Jennifer was also one of the speakers invited to address an event hosted by Queens University Belfast earlier this month on The future of breastfeeding on the island of Ireland.

“I spoke about a new programme of research with University College Cork, Centre for Effective Services (where I work), and 20 national and international collaborators called Maximising Support for Breastfeeding, a €2.5 million 4 year programme funded by the Health Research Board, aimed at making breastfeeding as easy as possible for women in Ireland,” Jennifer said.

“I will be leading a significant portion of the work, developing evidence based resources to influence a positive culture shift in how we, as a society, support and protect breastfeeding.”

Last September. Jennifer was one of the speakers invited by Sabrina Higgins to address the the annual Latching On Morning at Áras an Uachtaráin celebrating Breast Feeding Week.