Birth & Baby Resource Network Celebrates!

From a booth at Earth Day to a school hallway to Garden Street to Mission Plaza; this year marks a milestone in the history of this local all women non-profit organization as we host our fifteenth annual Birth & Baby Fair. In presenting this year’s Fair BBRN is excited to be partnering with Santa Lucia Birth Center andCommunity Health Centers. We are a very small organization of dedicated volunteers and putting on the Birth Fair is a huge task each year. To have Santa Lucia Birth Center and Community Health Centers come in as co-sponsors of the Fair this year helped make our fifteenth annual a reality. Since our founding nearly 20 years ago our mission hasn't changed. It is to connect families to information and resources that help empower them to make safe decisions. The Fair is our premier community outreach event creating a network of resources for families across the spectrum of health care.

The Fair is looked forward to each year by pregnant couples and new parents all over the county as the best place to connect to health practitioners, photographers, and local craft people with ties to pregnancy, birth and babies, as well as, gathering health and safety information. There will be raffles, freebies, food and fun. The Silent Auction will have many wonderful items including a car seat donated by San Luis Obispo County Child Injury Prevention Coalition. It is BBRN’s tradition to hold the Fair the day before Mother’s Day as part of our way of celebrating motherhood and honoring the work mothers do. What started as a few booths in a school hallway has blossomed into spilling out onto the streets surrounding Mission Plaza. Come join the excitement as we celebrate from 10 to 3.

BBRN is also proud to announce the reopening of our Lending Library which had been put in storage due to earthquake retrofitting. The Library is an important part of fulfilling our mission of providing families access to information empowering them to make their own decisions surrounding pregnancy, birth & parenting. The Library is located in the Santa Lucia Birth Center on South Higuera across from Los Osos Valley Road.

Another way the Resource Network has been busy this year with community outreach is hosting monthly events on such varied topics as; “Birth from a Multicultural Perspective”, “Talking with Your Child about Sex”, “Postpartum Depression”, and “How Birth is Portrayed in the Media”. Coming in May is “Birthing an Earth Friendly Family” and June we will hold another "Meet the Midwives" night. In order to provide a wide range of topics BBRN networks with many local non-profits and individuals to present up to date information on what is currently available in our community. The environmentally friendly baby store, EcoBambino in downtown SLO graciously provides a location.

For information on events, Library hours, membership, or to access our on-line Resource Guide visit their web site at http://www.bbrn.org/.

Thank you to Marilyn Rivas Tate who took beautiful photographs of the 2010 Birth Fair !