Our vision is that no parent experiences isolation, racial disparities, cultural disparities, or disease, due to lack of access to breastfeeding support.  

Mission

​To improve community health and reduce disparities  by establishing  free programs offering professional-level breastfeeding support and peer social connection.
Baby Café USA is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization coordinating a network of licensed U.S. Baby Cafés. Communities across the U.S. are implementing the Baby Café model in efforts to reduce health disparities nationwide and help mothers realize their breastfeeding goals. All Baby Café sites in the U.S. are licensed by Baby Café USA, and have use of the Baby Café trademarked name and logo.

The Baby Café Service Model

Standardized Care
All Baby Cafés are required to be licensed by Baby Café USA through an application process including staff training and must hold a current license to operate (renewed annually). The Baby Café name and logo are trademarked and represents quality breastfeeding care, free to all parents. Baby Cafés do not sell or market anything to attendees. 
Quality Professional Staff
Café staff include a range of approved breastfeeding counselors such as IBCLCs, CLCs, CLSs, BCs, and CLEs. All Baby Cafés have a digital scale and access to an IBCLC (Board-Certified Lactation Consultant) and are able to refer parents to specialty care if necessary. Help is available on all aspects of breastfeeding and its impact on daily life – from starting to stopping and all the variations in between
Inclusive and Accessible
Baby Cafés offer free full-spectrum breastfeeding/chestfeeding support from pregnancy to weaning. Cafés welcome exclusive pumping parents, working parents, and stay-at-home parents of all cultures and lifestyles. Baby Café sponsors make efforts to find culturally appropriate staff for the community population, with translation services available if necessary. Many sites also offer Virtual Baby Cafés. 
Parent Community Connection
Baby Cafes encourage social connections between attendees outside of meetings and may sponsor Facebook groups and other social events such as guest speakers and baby-wearing demonstrations.
Statistical Reporting
All Baby Cafés are also required to collect statistical data for internal review and reporting. Statistical analysis published in Breastfeeding Medicine Journal reported Baby Cafés to be effective at improving breastfeeding duration.

​BCUSA History

PictureLucia Jenkins RN, IBCLC, RLC Executive Director
Baby Café USA (BCUSA) was established as a non-profit organization in February 2012 by Lucia Jenkins RN, IBCLC, RLC. The idea for the first U.S. Baby Café was conceived in 2004 with her vision of free, drop-in weekly meeting sites where breastfeeding families could access timely, professional quality intervention and guidance, while also building supportive relationships with other community families. Ms. Jenkins founded the first Baby Café in 2006 at Melrose-Wakefield Hospital, which quickly expanded with two additional WIC-based Cafés. BCUSA was formed six years later and continued to expand across the country with licensed Baby Cafés currently operating in 26 states, including Alaska.
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Baby Cafés specifically target under-served areas with low breastfeeding rates and are individually funded by a wide range of community, private, and national funds and grants obtained from surrounding community organizations. Baby Cafés are physically situated in public areas such as libraries, WIC offices, churches, YMCAs, and other donated spaces. The model is designed to foster community connections and investment in the local population’s health by offering an inexpensive, flexible and successful program. The statistical and breastfeeding duration data gathered at each Café allows evaluation of the impact on community breastfeeding rates and factors influencing a mother’s breastfeeding success, with potential for national impact analysis.
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Communities facing racial and ethnic health disparities in the U.S. have low breastfeeding rates and poor health outcomes, but proportionally low numbers of lactation professionals of color. In efforts to reduce these disparities, BCUSA designed an inexpensive mentoring program in 2016, the Baby Café Breastfeeding Counselor (BCBC) curriculum, that offers training to interested attendees desiring to pursue breastfeeding counseling careers.

BCUSA’s founding board was comprised of graduated Baby Café parents who continue to support the expanded development and goals of the organization. As BCUSA grows, the board will evolve to include representatives with diverse backgrounds and expertise in various fields. All Board members are committed to fostering breastfeeding success for all families, in all communities, regardless of race, gender, culture, family structure, or socio-economic status. 

BCUSA Administration

Directors and Board​

Lisa Russell Miller, D.HSc.,IBCLC
Executive Director

Lisa Miller obtained her Doctor of Health Sciences from Campbell University School of Pharmacy & Health Sciences and is Internationally Board-Certified as a Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). She is engaged in breastfeeding research and recently published on the effectiveness of incentives to improve breastfeeding outcomes. Dr. Miller founded Empower Breastfeeding, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering those who nurture others. She was instrumental in bringing the Baby Cafe model to N.C. and has been a Baby Café facilitator since 2018.​

Lucia Jenkins RN, IBCLC, RLC
Founder and Chief Operations Officer

Lucia has been an IBCLC for 30 years, prior to which she practiced for six years as a home-birth midwife. She works actively as a Lactation Consultant in her private consulting practice, North Shore Lactation, which has served the Greater Boston community for the past 18 years. She is the originator of the first USA Baby Café, where she continues to support mother-baby dyads from pregnancy to weaning. She is a member of local and national lactation associations, and a voting member of the USBC.  Lucia lectures at conferences and state coalitions about Baby Cafés, and the process of starting them. She delights in being the mother of five grown children and 14 grandchildren.

Katie Barnes, PhD
Board Member

​Katie earned her doctorate in Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005. After experiencing difficulty nursing her first child, Katie sought out help from the Baby Café and went on to have a wonderful and very successful nursing relationship. Katie is now a full-time mom and lives in Massachusetts with her husband and three children.

Daniel Lieber
Board Member

​Daniel is an experienced board member, entrepreneur, and technologist. He is the founder of Innovative Ideas Unlimited, Inc., a software company, and supports a variety of non-profit groups. His business acumen and detailed understanding of various industries are helpful in his role as a Baby Café USA board member. Mr. Lieber gladly devotes his time towards improving the community, including being elected to the local public school board. Daniel resides in Wakefield, Mass. with his wife, two daughters, and loving dog. Since seeing first-hand the benefits of timely professional lactation support for his wife with each daughter, he has become an advocate for educating people about this beautiful maternal capability and the need for local support.

​Regina Maria Roig-Romero MRH, IBCLC Paige Hall Smith MSPH, PhD
Board Member​

Regina Maria Roig-Romero MPH, IBCLC, is the Program Manager of Prenatal & Lactation Services at Champions for Children, a nonprofit organization in Tampa, Florida dedicated to the prevention of child abuse and neglect. Regina has been an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) since 1996. She spent the first 20 years of her lactation career working as an IBCLC for the WIC program in Miami, Florida. She earned her Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from Florida International University in 2013 and is currently pursuing a PhD in Public Health. Regina has previously enjoyed serving in other leadership positions in her field. She was a member of the Breastfeeding Promotion Committee of the National WIC Association for four years and a member of the Board of Directors of the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners (IBLCE) for six years, the latter of which included a term as Chair of the IBLCE Board. 
​​Paige Hall Smith MSPH, PhD
Board Member ​​
Paige Hall Smith is a professor of Public Health Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She received her MPH and doctorate from UNC Chapel Hill. She joined PHE in 1995 and is currently in phased retirement, working (mostly online) during the spring semester. She was the Linda Arnold Carlisle Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies for 2004-2006, served as director of UNCG’s Center for Women’s Health and Wellness from 2004-2020, and was the founder and director of the Breastfeeding and Feminism International Conference from 2004-2019. Her research program focused on breastfeeding interventions and the links between infant feeding and gender, and various areas of gender violence including conceptualization and measurement of domestic violence (the Women’s Experience with Battering Scale), health care response to domestic violence, and prevalence and risk factors for victimization and perpetration of sexual violence, building community responses to LGBTQ partner violence. She enjoys her “retirement” times by traveling, learning Spanish, and spending more time with family, friends and her community.

Tom Jenkins
Treasurer

​Tom is retired from his former job as senior vice president and director of a consulting engineering firm, and now fills his time as volunteer treasurer for three non-profit organizations; Wakefield Food Pantry, At Home and Afar, and Baby Cafe USA. Tom lives with his wife of 40 years, Lucia, in Wakefield, MA and enjoys cooking, hiking with their dog, , working on never ending home maintenance and escaping to the Jenkins’ family compound in Fayette, Maine. He also tries to visit and spend time with his 5 children and 14 grandchildren, all within an hour from the family homestead.

Development Team

Douglas Craig Smith BA, MSEE, MBA
​Data Analysis

Craig is retired from an 32 year career working for Verizon, the last 18 years of which, he was a Data Analyst in their Business Intelligence Application Development division. He has experience particularly with Structured Query Language (SQL) and using Oracle, Microsoft Access & Excel to develop databases. He has been instrumental in building Baby Café USA’s databases for gathering and analyzing Café statistics. When he is not working for BCUSA he is following his passion for skiing (Colorado being a favorite), listening to music, or doing home maintenance in Cambridge, where he lives with his wife and 2 almost-fully-grown children.

Christine Staricka, BS, IBCLC, RLC, CCE
California Advanced Lactation Institute
​Social Media Manager

Christine is a hospital-based IBCLC and a certified childbirth educator, and has extensive experience in both inpatient and outpatient consultation. She has also been involved in the creation of the local chapter of USLCA. As a professional lactation educator, she has seen how a Baby Café location can meet the needs of the professional community as well by providing access to opportunities for clinical experience for IBCLC interns and prospects. Christine has assisted in giving BCUSA a voice and presence on social media platforms and helping train new Café staff, as well as creating her own lactation education blogs.

Yohualitztli, BS, CLE
English to Spanish Translator

​Yohualitztli is a Purépecha/Cemanahuac Indigenous mother of two precious jades who inspire and ground her and whom she enjoys homeschooling. She is guided by her elders and walks alongside her Indigenous community. Yohualitztli is a Ticitl, a healer, who has left, and will continue to make, offerings in several mountains as she continues to learn and grow. Her work is grounded in community; she is a birthworker/doula trained and working with the Birthworkers of Color Collective, a lactation educator interning with Breastfeed LA, and a treater of wounds. She earned her Bachelors of Science in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz,  and is a published scientist in the field of Breast Cancer. Her services are focused on supporting Indigenous, Black and People of Color communities during birth, postpartum, loss, lactation and Pilmama, baby carrying. Yohualitztli is an activist, continuing to fight for reproductive justice and strives to work in community to close the gap in services in health care for communities of color. 

Sarah Gregory
BCBC Curriculum Coordinator

Sarah has formal education in Communication Management and a Specialty in Middle School Education and Reading. After starting her family, she changed directions to become certified as a Postpartum, Birth and Fertility Doula.  She has continued to add lactation education to her skills by completing the CLC training and embarking on IBCLC certification. She is passionate about all things involving supporting new parents and breastfeeding, and has extensive experience working with students. Sarah has enjoyed nursing her 2 daughters through many challenges and continues to nurse her currently 20 month old. She lives and works in Massachusetts.

Caroline Cohen
Baby Café Website Support

Caroline Cohen teamed up with Baby Café USA to develop and maintain our website. She has been an artist and designer her whole life, but she formally studied graphic design, art and digital photography at Tulane University in New Orleans. For the over 10 years, she has worked at her independent studio, CPDesigns as a graphic designer and web developer for businesses small and large, associations, non-profits and community organizations. She has also been connected to Baby Café while receiving breastfeeding support. She lives in Massachusetts with her two wild boys and husband.

​State Coordinators

Christine Staricka, BS, IBCLC, RLC, CCE
California

Christine runs a very popular and successful Baby Café in Bakersfield, California, and also has a role as our Social Media Manager (listed above). She advocates for breastfeeding and for IBCLCs through paid employment, volunteer work, and personal involvement in community organizations.  As an IBCLC who came from a mother-to-mother support background and began her career in lactation as a lactation educator, Christine is passionate about increasing access to breastfeeding support groups. When she first read about the Baby Café model, she immediately realized that a Baby Café would fill many gaps in the breastfeeding environment of care in her community. 

Abby Malman, IBCLC, Birth Doula
Colorado

Abby is the manager of donor relations at Mothers' Milk Bank in Colorado. She is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) a birth doula, and was on the board for the Portland Doula Association for five years. Abby worked in her private practice, Bliss Lactation, serving families in the Portland area until moving back to Colorado in 2016.  She has been at Mothers' Milk Bank since 2016 and enjoys working with donors from all over the country helping to steward their generous donation of extra breastmilk to help give babies the best start in life. She lives in Denver with her husband, two sweet sons, and large extended family. Abby is humbled by the wisdom all mama's have, and hopes to provide more breastfeeding education and resources so more women can feel confident in their abilities to initiate breastfeeding and overcome breastfeeding hurdles. ​

Danielle Lugrand, CLC, CLE, DONA
Oklahoma

​Danielle has been serving Oklahoma families since 2000 as a DONA Certified Birth Doula. In 2007, she became the first DONA Certified Postpartum Doula in the state. She became a trained breastfeeding educator through the OK State WIC Program in 2001; a Certified Breastfeeding Educator (CBE) in 2014; and a Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC) through the Healthy Children’s Project in 2015. Through the Doula Association of Central Oklahoma, Danielle gained experience in serving both the public and peer professionals as Public Relations Chair, Secretary, Vice President, and President. She also served on the DONA International Certification committee for five years. She is a wife, mother of six, and grandmother of four. Danielle has a passion for serving growing families and increasing the number Doulas in Oklahoma.

Portia L. Williams, RN, BSN, IBCLC
Louisiana

Portia is located in New Orleans, LA and has been an International Lactation Consultant since 2009 and works as a LC at a local hospital. She is a proud graduate  of the University of Lafayette, and has 13 years of Maternal Child experience. Her personal experience as a NICU mom guides her love for supporting breastfeeding parents. She is currently the CHAMPS Greater New Orleans Community and Hospital Consultant, and the CHAMPS NOLA Baby Café Facilitator. She also worked closely with Greater New Orleans Breastfeeding Awareness Coalition where she initiated a “Breastfeeding Friendly” Child Care Center program. Her career goal is to increase the number of minority Lactation Consultant and increase breastfeeding rates by empowering mom with love, support, and education by providing culturally relevant care. Portia is the proud mom of two healthy breastfed boys, whom she tandem nursed until the age of 3.5 years.

Benita Samuel BSN, RN, MHA, MSW
Massachusetts
Clerk, Administrative Assistant

​Benita resides north of Boston and is a stay-at-home mother of three young children; all have been or are currently breastfed. Benita has worked as an RN in hospital as well as community-based settings and completed social work practicums in Early Intervention and outpatient maternity services. Benita's passion for maternity work began at a young age when she observed her own mother's teaching of birth processes to villagers in India with a handmade shoebox "womb" and stuffed fabric baby doll. The positive and challenging experiences from the births of her own children, one of whom was a planned home-birth, increased her understanding of the support needed by all parents of growing families. Benita continues to assist families with concerns related to prenatal, labor and delivery, postpartum, breastfeeding, mental, emotional, nutritional, and physical wellness. She enjoys traveling, daydreaming, a good book, experimenting with cooking and baking, connecting with friends worldwide, and creating sunny memories with her family.

Stephanie Avienu, BS, IBCLC
New York​

​Stephanie Avienu currently facilitates 2 Baby Cafes in the Capital Region-one in Troy and one in Albany. She breastfed each of her four children for many years and is still nursing her youngest at 2 ½. Her passion for breastfeeding support work began after the birth of her oldest child in 2007, where she was blessed to live in an area with a long history of community-based breastfeeding support. She has seen the benefits of such a model first hand and so she knows how important groups like the Baby Café are for new and even experienced mothers. She holds a bachelor's degree in Maternal and Child Health: Lactation Consulting, a Master's Certificate in Health Education and Promotion, and has been an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant since 2016.

Advisory Group

Tawanda Logan-Hurt, BSW, CLC
Community Advisor - Mississippi

Tawanda is a native of Greenwood, Mississippi. She has worked in the Mississippi Delta as a Northern Region Breastfeeding Coordinator at the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) since June 2005. She is the CHEER/CHAMPS Mississippi Delta Community and Hospitals Consultant.  In April 2016, she established the first Baby Café in Mississippi, the CHAMPS Delta Hills Baby Café, which she facilitates with her staff. She was the 2016 recipient of the Mississippi Public Health Association (MPHA) Conference’s TaWanda Ferrill Breastfeeding Award. She also established the Delta Breastfeeding Coalition in January 2018 in partnership with the Delta Health Alliance program manager. She is an active church member, wife, biological mother of six children, five of which were breastfed.

Mary Starck
Community Outreach

After graduating from Boston College with an A.B. in American Studies and completing a Masters in Library and Information Science from Simmons College, I spent 45 years working in public libraries in Boston and Atlanta. I took positions in many different communities in these metro areas, I focused on strengthening outreach programs to various populations, training and managing change for the organization. My last position with Fulton County brought the challenges of overseeing 32 branches and managing services to children and teens in the county. Since leaving that job in 2013 I have been an outreach advocate for the Women's Resource Center to End Domestic Violence in Decatur, GA, supporting women as they travel the path of putting their lives together after living with domestic violence. I am committed to the work of Baby Cafe USA and the role that it can take in nurturing families to take on the challenges of our future.

Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC
Government Outreach

Marsha is a registered nurse and international board certified lactation consultant. She has been assisting breastfeeding families in hospital, clinic, and home settings since 1976. Marsha is the executive director of the National Alliance for Breastfeeding Advocacy: Research, Education, and Legal Branch (NABA REAL). As such, she advocates for breastfeeding at the state and federal levels. She served as a vice president of the International Lactation Consultant Association (ILCA) from 1990-1994 and in 1999 as president of ILCA. She is the chair of the Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition, a board member of the US Lactation Consultant Association, USLCA’s representative to the USDA’s Breastfeeding Promotion Consortium, and NABA REAL’s representative to the US Breastfeeding Committee. Marsha is an international speaker, and an author of numerous publications including ones on the hazards of infant formula use, Code issues in the US, and Breastfeeding Management for the Clinician: Using the Evidence. 
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