BROOKINGS — Starting in 2024, Brookings Health System will add Thursday morning sessions from 10 a.m. to noon for New Beginnings Baby Café. The free, drop-in breastfeeding support group will meet at Brookings Hospital inside the obstetrics unit’s family lounge.

New Beginnings Baby Café offers ongoing, professional lactation care and supports breastfeeding mothers in every aspect of nursing. It is facilitated by registered nurses who are also IBCLC lactation consultants. It allows attendees to talk with other breastfeeding mothers, get one-on-one help from lactation consultants, and weigh-feed-weigh their baby to ensure an infant is getting enough milk.

The new Thursday sessions are in addition to the Tuesday sessions from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Prairie Perk-Up Coffee Shop inside Brookings Hospital. All pregnant and breastfeeding mothers are welcome to attend either session.

Brookings Health System established New Beginnings Baby Café in 2015 to help mothers and babies continue to breastfeed after leaving the hospital. It is the only Baby Café session in South Dakota registered with Baby Café USA.

Brookings Health System’s OB unit, New Beginnings Birth Center, has eight beds consisting of five labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum suites and three postpartum recovery rooms. As a baby-friendly designated hospital, the unit provides full OB services to expectant parents and enables area residents to deliver their baby close to home with a local physician. To learn more about New Beginnings Birth Center, visit brookingshealth.org/OB.