South Portland resident Eva Tedford breastfeeds her newborn daughter. Tedford regularly attends meetings of La Leche League of Portland. Contributed / Eva Tedford

On evenings twice a month, a circle of parents gathers in Portland with their young children in tow. Babies nurse, toddlers play with toys within the circle’s circumference, and mothers share their challenges, questions and triumphs in breastfeeding as part of La Leche League of Portland.

Mothers talk about uncertainties with latching, their nursing toddlers growing new sharp teeth, and nipple soreness. For each query, the circle’s responses range from sharing what happened to their own child, recommending new techniques and products, and just saying that this phase will pass.

“It’s such a wonderful feeling, getting to share experiences and help younger or newer mothers with some of their experiences,” said attendee Allison Glider, who goes to the meetings with her 19-month-old son.

La Leche League of Portland is a chapter of Leche League International, a nonprofit that supports peer-to-peer breastfeeding education across 80 countries. There are 491 volunteer-run chapters of the organization in the United States and five in Maine. La Leche League of Portland is the longest continuously running chapter in New England. Despite its longevity, the group has undergone ups and downs the past five years.

The Portland chapter dwindled to almost zero while meeting virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic. When Portland mother of two Rachel Ackoff became a leader of the Portland group last fall, she started up the in-person meetings at the Maine Jewish Museum and has seen excitement from the community. Seven to 10 parents now regularly attend meetings.

“My role is really about facilitating that conversation where, like, the answers are out there in the room from lots of different people with their real diversity of experiences, and they can share with each other what they found,” she said.

While the number of attendees has steadily risen since in-person meeting started up again in October last year, knowledge about the class has mostly spread through word of mouth so far, said Ackoff. She is working to more widely inform parents in the city seeking a free breastfeeding resource about La Leche League of Portland. Ackoff said she hopes the group can help alleviate barriers to learning about breastfeeding that some Portlanders may face.

“There’s disparities along lines of class, for low-income parents and folks with less education. So, I’m definitely passionate about breastfeeding support, because that can help decrease those disparities,” said Ackoff.

When La Leche League was founded by seven mothers in Chicago in 1956, breastfeeding was not encouraged by medical professionals nor was it widely practiced in the U.S. at the time, with only 20-30% of babies breastfed at all, according to the National Survey for Family Growth.

Today, the medical field widely encourages breastfeeding, with studies showing it increases babies’ immunity and cognitive development while reducing their risk of disease. Breastfeeding is also much more socially accepted in the U.S. now than in the 1950s. Since 2010, six sessions of lactation consultation are covered under the Affordable Care Act. According to the CDC’s 2022 Breastfeeding Report Card, over 86% of infants in the state of Maine are breastfed at some point.

“Our numbers started to dwindle a little bit as other support came up in the community. But I never looked at that as a bad thing,” said the group’s other leader, Mary Bloch. “I always just thought, the more support there is out there, the better it is to serve the families of the Portland area.”

While there are more available resources for initiating breastfeeding, there is a gap in support for breastfeeding later in childhood development and general questions parents have after infancy, said Bloch. While many of these later resources are costly to parents and deter continuing breastfeeding, La Leche League fills this gap at no cost, she said.

Glider has been attending meetings since January.

“I had been looking to find some people who had similar views around breastfeeding, and surprisingly very few of my friends went the route of breastfeeding,” she said.

“It was just really refreshing to join a group of people that were going through some of the same things and also specifically wanted to breastfeed for a longer period of time into the toddler years,” she said.

La Leche League attendee Heather Orr was also happy to find a community for toddler nursing. She attends the meetings with her 3-year-old daughter and is nine months pregnant with her second child.

“As a mom who’s nursing my child, especially past the one-year mark, I don’t really have any of those connections in my personal life,” said Orr. “I have a lot of people that are supportive, but no one personally who has found nursing to be really important to them in early childhood.”

Breastfeeding of toddlers has not caught up to medical recommendations in American culture, said multiple attendees of La Leche League of Portland. The American Academy of Pediatrics supports continued breastfeeding for children 2 years old and beyond as of 2022, yet the breastfeeding of toddlers continues to be rare in the U.S.

Members of La Leche League also expressed how the meetings eased the isolation of new parenthood.

“I was also just looking for mom connections,” said Orr. “When I had my daughter, it was in the height of COVID, so it was really isolating in general.”

“It’s very isolating being a new parent, especially if you’re a little more introverted,” said Glider. “Whenever you have a chance to find small communities within parenthood that represent your philosophy or your path in parenting, that helps with this sense of isolation.”

Becky Wartell went to her first Le Leche League meeting when she was nine months pregnant last fall. She brought her 4-week-old daughter to the next meeting. She said that the consistency of La Leche League meetings helped soothe her anxiety as a breastfeeding mother.

“It’s just reassuring to know that that space is there. If I find myself in need of it or feeling like I have a question, I know that there’s a place I can go to ask those questions,” said Wartell.

Both leaders and participants of La Leche League of Portland emphasized how creating community was the most important role of the organization.

“At the end of the day, we are really all in this journey of raising children, it’s a way for us to extend our hand of support,” said Bloch. “Even though they’re not our family, we’re there to support families, and it’s good for the community.”