World Breastfeeding Week: Day 1

Its World Breastfeeding Week and I plan to write a little something about breastfeeding each day. Today I want to focus on breastfeeding among women of color. 

Frankly put, you just don't see many women of color nursing their babes. I don't know if its a societal thing that primarily only caucasian women are displayed in the media or if its more statistical and there simply aren't as many minorities nursing out there. Whatever the case, I think there needs to be some change. 

This article from the CDC gives some numbers of nursing mamas which  have increased and that's a good thing, but they're still not where they should be in my humble opinion. According to their research, by 2008 just under 60% of black women nursed their babies and that's great!... but where are they? I've personally never seen a black woman out in public nursing her babe. Very rarely do you see an ad featuring a woman of color and recently, Beyonce has been in the media because she nurses her little one, but she is one of a few who get the press. 

Here's something produced by The Joint Center for Political and Economical Studies Health Policy Institute. I haven't read it in its entirety, but I'm intrigued by it. They list some factors that influence one's decision to breastfeed: the government, the media, the formula industry, community/environment and relationships with other to name a few. The last one might be what sticks out to me the most because as a woman of color, I am the first in my family - on both sides - to nurse my children. Well, to be fair, I should say that Barrie did nurse all three of her kids, but it was combined less than 9 months. And don't get me wrong, that's something, but its not like I looked up to her in years past and formed an ideal of what nursing would be like from her. I basically educated myself, made a decision that felt right for me and my child and now I've changed the tide for women in my family. I hope. There's nothing that says that my own daughter will choose to make the choices that I've made when its her time to be a mother or if Kristi has a daughter, she might not be any different than her own mother. But! I can hope. I can help educated. I can help change the statistics one teensy step at a time.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here except that I want breastfeeding to be as mainstream and acceptable as the boobs we see in a Victoria's Secret ad. (Actually, I'd prefer that it be more acceptable than those dumb ads, but that's an entirely different point.) I'm extremely thankful for the friends that I've been able to surround myself with who have taught me the benefits of this life-giving magic substance called milk. I'm also thankful that I've been able to find the resources to learn things on my own. This post and the posts that follow it throughout the week are in no way my attempt to make it seem like I'm better than someone else or that my ideas are the only and best ones. I'm simply using this blog as my outlet to rant a bit about the things I'm most passionate about. After all, this thing is primarily for me and my family and well, they're all used to my ramblings by now!