Why Are Black Women The Least Likely To Breastfeed? Examining Barriers To Black Breastfeeding

August 25th began Black Breastfeeding Week —a time dedicated to highlighting the racial disparities in breastfeeding rates. Black Breastfeeding Week takes place at the end of August, which is National Breastfeeding Month. A 2023 report looking at breastfeeding initiation in 2020 and 2021 revealed that Black women, compared to other racial and ethnic groups, were the least likely to initiate breastfeeding. The racial disparities in breastfeeding rates are just one glaring example of how systemic racism is baked into American childcare, starting from the time of conception. This article explores racial disparities in breastfeeding rates in more detail and provides strategies and solutions to address these inequities.

To understand racial disparities in breastfeeding, it’s important to look at history. During chattel slavery in the antebellum south, enslaved African women were expected to engage in wet-nursing: the practice of a lactating mother breastfeeding another woman’s child. A 2017 article by Emily West and R.J. Knight explained, “As a form of exploitation specific to slave mothers, enforced wet-nursing constituted a distinct aspect of enslaved women’s commodification.” There are many psychological effects of being forced to serve as wet nurses for slave holder’s children. These remnants of enslavement still have profound impacts on the Black community in a multitude of ways, and impact Black women’s desire to breastfeed.

The aggressive marketing of baby formula to Black Americans is also a contributing factor to the racial disparities in breastfeeding rates. After the birth of the first recorded set of Black quadruplets to a Black Cherokee mother named Annie Mae Fultz in 1946, a white doctor, Fred Klenner, who delivered the set of baby girls, orchestrated a lucrative deal between the quadruplets and St. Louis Pet Company to market baby formula to Black women in the 20th century. According to Andrea Freeman, who wrote the book Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice, “through Pet Milk’s bold marketing scheme, many Black women became convinced that formula was just as healthy as, or even healthier than, breast milk. This comforting belief made it easier for them to succumb to a host of external pressures not to breastfeed.” In the book, Freeman explained how the lack of positive images of Black women breastfeeding has also contributed to the racial disparities in breastfeeding rates.

“Compared to their white counterparts, Black mothers and birthing people are less likely to initiate breastfeeding—and once they start breastfeeding, they are less likely to continue the practice for long enough to confer the benefits onto their infants,” shared Latham Thomas . Thomas is a trailblazer in Black maternal health advocacy and is the founder of the Mama Glow Foundation , a Brooklyn-based organization that trains and supports doulas. “Black women are less likely to receive community support postpartum,” Thomas explained, “[Are] more likely to have to return to work shortly after birth, and less likely to have intergenerational examples of breast-feeding success.”

According to a 2015 research study , contributors to the racial disparities in breastfeeding rates include the fact that Black women return to work sooner, on average, than women of other races and also that Black women work in roles with work hours that make breastfeeding more challenging. Barriers to exclusive breastfeeding among Black mothers include “lack of access to and knowledge of breastfeeding laws and policies, as well as negative cultural norms or stigma,” indicated a 2023 qualitative study . “My breastfeeding experience was incredibly painful, both physically and emotionally. Society often emphasizes that breastfeeding is the best option for your baby, and while that is true, there’s a significant stigma attached when you can’t produce enough milk,” explained Aerodei CEO Netta Jenkins . More resources are needed to support Black mothers and birthing people who want to breastfeed but experience obstacles and challenges along the way.

Research indicates that doula support can play a vital role in breastfeeding initiation. One way to address the racial disparities in breastfeeding could be providing Black mothers and birthing people with greater access to doula support. Latham Thomas created the Mama Glow Foundation and the First Foods Justice Breastfeeding Certificate Program for Doulas with this objective in mind. Thomas explained that the goals of the program are to “train and certify 100 community care workers and doulas as Community Lactation Educators, serve marginalized people with lactation support and to measure the outcomes and capture feeding success experiences within the program.”

Black women continue to lag behind their counterparts when it comes to breastfeeding initiation. The reasons are systemic and include a lack of flexibility in work arrangements, a lack of support and social stigma within the community. To counteract the disparities in breastfeeding rates among Black mothers and birthing people, more education about the problem is needed. Specific interventions must continue to be created to support Black mothers and birthing people and workplaces must do more to ensure that information about breastfeeding rights is disseminated to every employee.

This article was originally published in Forbes.

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