There is an international breastfeeding community. It includes people who actively promote breastfeeding

Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is the feeding of an infant or young child with breast milk directly from female human breasts rather than from a baby bottle or other container. Babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck and swallow milk. It is recommended that mothers breastfeed for six months or...

, teach breastfeeding, research breastfeeding and related health issues, and who write about breastfeeding

Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is the feeding of an infant or young child with breast milk directly from female human breasts rather than from a baby bottle or other container. Babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck and swallow milk. It is recommended that mothers breastfeed for six months or...

 and the ways it influences mothering, parenting and family life.

When La Leche League (LLL) was organized in 1956, it became a central place of contact for women looking for information, researchers and health professionals searching for peers, mothers hoping for encouragement and support, and writers wanting to connect with each other and share knowledge and insight.

As breastfeeding women began to join League and attend meetings they also became a willing market for publications about nursing and parenting

Parenting

Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood...

. La Leche League conferences (local, national and international) created venues for speakers, for researchers to present their findings, and for new books to be released. As more women became college educated and entered the work force, they began to create new health fields, such as lactation consultation

Lactation consultant

A lactation consultant is a healthcare provider recognized as an expert in the fields of human lactation and breastfeeding. The USLCA, United States Lactation Consultant Association, is the presiding organization in the United States of America and the International Lactation Consultant...

. Today, there are lactivists, women and men who actively promote the health benefits of breastfeeding for mothers, babies and communities, and who protest companies and corporations who discriminate against breastfeeding women.

With the development of the internet, individual women can share their breastfeeding experiences, sites can be created that address medical issues, research can be shared throughout the world, and governments can promote breastfeeding as a tool to improve the general health of their entire populations.

This list starts small, with the names of the founders of La Leche League, and then links to articles about the most well-known writers and researchers in the field of breastfeeding today. It includes the most authoritative sites with breastfeeding information, and some smaller sites that address important aspects of breastfeeding. The world health community encourages breastfeeding with sites aimed at a national and international audience.

Seven founders of La Leche League, also known as the founding mothers

• Mary Ann Cahill
• Edwina Froehlich
• Mary Ann Kerwin
• Viola Lennon
• Marian Tompson
  Marian Tompson
  Marian Leonard Tompson is one of the seven founders of La Leche League International. She was President of La Leche League for 24 years, from 1956 to 1980, and a member of the Founders Advisory Council. Wife of the late Clement Tompson, she is the mother of seven children, a grandmother and...
  
  
• Betty Wagner Spandikow
• Mary White

And some very early supporters of La Leche League, as listed in the Second Edition of the Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, May 1963, in order:

• Dr. Herbert Ratner, Dr. Gregory J. White, Dr. Niles Newton, Dr. E. Robbins Kimball
• Dr. Frank Howard Richardson, Dr. Grantly Dick-Read
  Grantly Dick-Read
  Grantly Dick-Read was a British obstetrician who is regarded by many as the father of natural childbirth movement. He dedicated his life to educating expectant parents about the benefits of giving birth naturally, with as little intervention from obstetricians and health professionals as possible...
  
  , Mrs. John Gale Aiken
• Ms Mildred Hatch, Mrs. Margaret Gamper R.N., Ms Joy Sidor, Ms Dorothy Vining
• Ms Mary B. Carson

Medical professionals working in the field today

• Kathy Dettwyler
  Kathy Dettwyler
  Dr. Katherine A. Dettwyler is an anthropology professor at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware. She is also a lecturer, author and breastfeeding advocate....
  
   Adjunct Associate Anthropology Professor at the University of Delaware. Also a lecturer, author and breastfeeding advocate. She wrote some of the first internet pages: Thoughts on Breastfeeding.
• Lawrence Gartner, Professor Emiritus, Departments of Pediatrics and Obstetrics/Gynecology University of Chicago, lead author of current American Academy of Pediatrics statement of Breastfeeding and the use of human milk
• Dr. Jay Gordon, M.D., Los Angeles pediatrician, frequent television and radio guest on child rearing, etc.
• Thomas W. Hale, R.Ph., Ph.D. Professor of Pediatrics, Texas Tech University School of Medicine http://neonatal.ttuhsc.edu/lact/aboutdrhalepage.html Author of Medications and Mother's Milk
• Barbara Heiser, RN, BSN, IBCLC, Executive Director of the National Alliance for Breastfeeding Advocacy
• Sheila Kitzinger
  Sheila Kitzinger
  Sheila Helena Elizabeth Kitzinger MBE is a British natural childbirth activist and author on childbirth and pregnancy. She is a social anthropologist specialising in pregnancy, childbirth and the parenting of babies and young children. Although she lectures on midwifery she has never been a midwife...
  
   workshops on the social anthropology of birth and breastfeeding
• Miriam Labbok
  Miriam Labbok
  Miriam Labbok, MD is an internationally renowned breastfeeding advocate, lactation scientist, and women's and children's issues advocate.Dr.Labbok is know for description of Lactational Amenorrhea Method as a method of birth spacing...
  
  , MD is a director of Carolina Global Breastfeeding institute at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. She is internationally known for advocacy of women's and children's issues, especially, birth spacing methods that do not harm breastfeeding.
• Chris Mulford
  Chris Mulford
  Chris Mulford was a prominent advocate of breastfeeding in the United States and globally.-Biography:Chris Mulford was born November 19, 1941...
  
  , RN, LLL Leader, IBCLC.
• Dr. Jack Newman, MD
  Jack Newman (doctor)
  Dr. Jack Newman, MD is a Canadian physician specializing in breastfeeding support and advocacy.He has written many articles and produced many videos about breastfeeding which are distributed widely by breastfeeding resource centers and websites, opened the first hospital breastfeeding clinic in...
  
   is a Canadian physician specializing in breastfeeding support and advocacy.
• Dr. William Sears
  William Sears (physician)
  William Penton Sears is an American pediatrician and the author or co-author of more than 30 parenting books, most notably several in the "Sears Parenting Library." He is a frequent guest on television talkshows, where he goes by the name Dr. Bill...
  
   is an American pediatrician and the author or co-author of more than 30 parenting books with his wife, Martha, who is also a La Leche League Leader. They write and lecture about attachment parenting
  Attachment parenting
  Attachment parenting, a phrase coined by pediatrician William Sears, is a parenting philosophy based on the principles of the attachment theory in developmental psychology. According to attachment theory, the child forms a strong emotional bond with caregivers during childhood with lifelong...
  
  , and coined the phrase.
• Amy Spangler
  Amy Spangler
  Amy Spangler is a breastfeeding expert and president of baby gooroo who has lectured extensively and published several books on breastfeeding. In addition to earning a bachelor’s and master’s degree in nursing, Spangler is a RN and IBCLC and has held a number of leadership positions with national...
  
   is an American MN
  Master of Science in Nursing
  A Master of Science in Nursing is an advanced-level postgraduate degree for registered nurses and is considered an entry-level degree for nurse educators and managers. The degree also may prepare a nurse to seek a career as a nurse administrator, health policy expert, or clinical nurse leader...
  
  , RN
  Registered nurse
  A registered nurse is a nurse who has graduated from a nursing program at a university or college and has passed a national licensing exam. A registered nurse helps individuals, families, and groups to achieve health and prevent disease...
  
   and IBCLC
  Lactation consultant
  A lactation consultant is a healthcare provider recognized as an expert in the fields of human lactation and breastfeeding. The USLCA, United States Lactation Consultant Association, is the presiding organization in the United States of America and the International Lactation Consultant...
  
   who lectures extensively on the benefits of breastfeeding and has written several books on the nursing-related subjects.
• Pat Shelly
  Pat Shelly
  Pat Shelly is the founder and director of The Breastfeeding Center for Greater Washington, a non-profit organization in Northwest Washington, DC, and leading breastfeeding activist....
  
  , IBCLC, RNC, MA, is the Director of the Breastfeeding Center for Greater Washington.

Prominent authors on breastfeeding-related topics

• Diana West
  Diana West (lactation consultant)
  Diana West is a leading lactation consultant and noted author in the field of breastfeeding.-Biography:Diana West was born August 8, 1965 in Rogers, Arkansas. West is the granddaughter of Clyde T...
  
  , IBCLC, a writer and lecturer on breastfeeding issues

Publications & Organizations that actively support breastfeeding

• Mothering
  Mothering (magazine)
  Mothering is a magazine focused on natural mothering practices, which began publishing in 1976.-History:Mothering was founded in 1976, and in the 80's, Peggy O'Mara became editor and publisher....
  
   A holistic parenting magazine edited by Peggy O'Mara, a breastfeeding advocate
• La Leche League
• Mom's Breastaurant
  Mom's Breastaurant
  Mom's Breastaurant is a US 5013 charitable organization devoted to promoting breastfeeding, particularly at public events and festivals.-History:...
  
  
• Best for Babes

Publications that address politics and breastfeeding

• Mother's Milk: Breastfeeding Controversies in American Culture Mother's Milk by Bernice Hausman examines why nursing a baby is an ideologically charged experience in contemporary culture.

• Milk, Money, and Madness

• Biocultural Perspectives on Breastfeeding by Katherine Dettwyler

• The Politics of Breastfeeding- When Breasts Are Bad for Business by Gabrielle Palmer