Transition & Gratitude

​Colleagues, friends, and fellow change-makers:

After fifteen incredible years with the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee, I have made the bittersweet decision to expand my horizons and transition my efforts to the environmental field. I am proud to have had the opportunity to serve as the National Policy Director for the USBC.

Cheryl Lebedevitch   
​National Policy Director   

As a young mother and college student, I quickly discovered that when it came to breastfeeding my baby, the cards were stacked against us. Despite a difficult birth, I had no access to lactation support in the hospital. Without paid leave or a financial safety net, I quickly returned to school and work, where I pumped standing and facing a wall in crowded university bathrooms and on an overturned mop bucket in a bathroom at work. I was approached again and again when attempting to nurse in public. Everywhere I turned, there were barriers, and as I talked to other young moms, I learned that my experience was the norm. I knew breastfeeding was the right choice for me and my baby, and this would be a fight worth fighting. So, I decided to do something about it. 

Motherhood changed me in many beautiful ways, inspiring me to fight for what I loved and believed in. I began an internship with the USBC, the start of the journey of a lifetime and a career I never would have dreamed was possible.

With your help, we’ve made enormous steps forward in our mission to create a landscape of breastfeeding support. We fought for and won investments in breastfeeding in the federal budget, the passage of the Providing Urgent Maternal Protections (PUMP) for Nursing Mothers Act, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), the Friendly Airports for Mothers Act, and the Fairness for Breastfeeding Mothers Act. We've strengthened regulations protecting lactating students and expanded insurer coverage requirements. These protections are transforming the experience of new parents, who will face far fewer challenges than the generations before them. It took the hard work and dedication of organizations and individuals across the nation to make this happen and we should be proud of these collective victories. It has been an incredible privilege to serve the USBC and the lactation field during a time of extraordinary and life-changing advancements.

Over the last fifteen years, my children have joined me in the halls of Congress as I fought by your side for new legislation. Thanks to you, they’ve learned to dream big, fight for their beliefs, and recognize that change is always possible. They’ve learned the beauty of hard work completed alongside passionate and intelligent people who want to improve the world.

I will continue in a part-time capacity at the USBC, but many of my responsibilities will shift to other brilliant and capable team members in the weeks and months ahead. Thank you for allowing me to join this journey. I can’t wait to see what this field achieves in the years to come.

With gratitude,

Cheryl Lebedevitch
National Policy Director
U.S. Breastfeeding Committee