Black Breastfeeding Week Aims to Reclaim Narrative and Center Stories for Breastfeeding Justice

Overview: Black Breastfeeding Week, an annual awareness week that addresses the disparities among Black women and the stigma associated with breastfeeding, aims to highlight the significance of Black breastfeeding and reclaim what belongs to us as well as centering our stories for breastfeeding justice. Studies have shown that Black infants have a lower rate of breastfeeding compared to their white counterparts due to a lack of knowledge about breastfeeding, inadequate support from health care institutions, and social norms. The California Department of Health noted that the law protects the right to breastfeed or chestfeed in public, with or without a covering, in hopes of reducing stigmatization and embarrassment which lead to barriers to breastfeeding.

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Breanna Reeves

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Infants who are breastfed have reduced risk of asthma, obesity and Type 1 diabetes, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but Black infants have a lower rate of breastfeeding compared to their white counterparts.

August 25 through August 31 marks Black Breastfeeding Week, an annual awareness week that addresses the disparities among Black women and the stigma associated with breastfeeding. Created in 2012 by three Black reproductive and maternal health experts, Kimberly Seals Allers, Kiddada Green and Anayah Sangodele-Ayoka, this year’s theme for Black Breastfeeding Week is “Reclaiming Our Narrative & Centering Our Stories for Breastfeeding Justice.”

As studies examine the breastfeeding rates and factors that contribute to the lower rate of breastfeeding among Black families, advocates continue to provide resources, educate and create safe spaces for communities to provide narratives and context to these rates.

“It’s highlighting the significance of Black breastfeeding because for so long and so often, our community has been told that we shouldn’t breastfeed or have been offered formula instead of actually being offered breastfeeding opportunities,” said Aiyana Davison, a certified nurse midwife and founder of The Village House.

According to a 2019 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study that examined infants born in 2015, “among all infants, Black infants had a significantly lower rate of any breastfeeding at age 3 months (58%) than did white infants (72.7%).” The rate was also lower among infants at six months.

The study recognized that Black mothers experience a greater number of barriers to breastfeeding, including a lack of knowledge about breastfeeding, inadequate support from health care institutions, and social norms.

Black Breastfeeding Week is an opportunity for Black mothers and community health advocates to “reclaim what belongs to us as well, especially with the longstanding history of enslavement and things like wet nursing, where we were breastfeeding other people’s babies before we were breastfeeding our own,” Davison explained.

Historically, enslaved new mothers were forced to serve as wet nurses for slave owners’ children, pulling them away from breastfeeding their own children, according to law professor Andrea Freeman in her article written for the Hastings Law Review Journal.

Check out the full story here: https://blackvoicenews.com/2024/08/27/black-breastfeeding-week-disparities/