For the CULTCHA!!!

Note: I absolutely spelled culture, CULTCHA, on purpose. Get into it, because I'll probably keep doing it. It's how I pronounce it anyway, and I'm trying to be a little more personal with this all. That means I might not use my school grammar all the time, and

Namastè!

...because that's part of my personal culture. *winks*

Now. This whole breastfeeding life has me hooked. I'm obsessed with reading and researching. I'm obsessed with trying to teach and share and encourage. I'm obsessed, in particular, with pouring this knowledge and all these warm wishes into my fellow Black women.

That's not to exclude anyone else...bear with me though, because before I can save the world, I gotta take care of home FIRST. Like, I can't give a bottle to the baby in the park while my own baby screams her head off for her milk and my arms. Don't let the mention of actual race frighten you here. Absorb it, and maybe help me fix the disparities here.

Do it for the CULTCHA.

Or just let me do this, and don't be a thorn. My own culture is the rose here. I must nurture it.

My culture, Black women in the US, hurts as far as breastfeeding is concerned. Here's some numbers I've dug up...

As of August 2018 (the most current info I was able to dig up when this post slammed itself into my mind--it was a real gotta write moment), the CDC reports that only 58.9% of Black women had ever breastfed at all, compared with 75% of White women. That doesn't take into account any particular milestone, just that a baby was latched to the breast.

We start out behind the curve. But it gets deeper.

Add to that our higher infant mortality rate--due to lack of and or insufficient prenatal care, our little ones are more likely to be born too small, too soon, or too sick.

THEN add the fact that our experiences with lactation consultants can often be lackluster or even detrimental. See, the field of lactation professionals is like a snowy landscape, dotted with the occasional Black or Brown consultant. Because we are not yet well-represented in this field, we are often faced with trying to work with a nurse or LC who doesn't understand the cultural, economical, and social constraints we may face in addition to the physiological and emotional aspects of breastfeeding. There's so much that can affect it. A person who doesn't understand your path, can't help you walk it.

Now add in the unique cultural associations Black women face when we set out to breastfeed.

1. Many of us are not even offered information on it, beginning with our upbringing! We grow up seeing babies with formula bottles, even when the parents of those infants cannot actually afford said formula.

2. We are conditioned to believe our bodies, or breasts in particular, are for sex and aesthetic.  Period. That means we associate them with carnal pleasure only. And once you are conditioned to view your body only that way, you have a difficult time deprogramming that mindset and understanding that breasts are for feeding infants first!

Note: It's fine to look appealing. I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge that breasts are part of the feminine aesthetic! I'd also be dead wrong if I didn't acknowledge and impart their FIRST purpose--to feed infants.

3. We don't get the right support, unless we live and or receive medical care in an area that's predominantly not Black or Brown.

I live in Georgia, in Gwinnett County. Peachtree Corners, which is right on the border of the coveted Johns Creek area. The "good side of the tracks" so to speak. I have private pay insurance. When I walk into my OB/GYN's office (or even my kids' pediatrician's office), I see bright colorful posters of moms breastfeeding. I see pamphlets providing information about the benefits of breastmilk.  The doctors and nurses extol the benefits of breastfeeding at practically every appointment. They celebrate it and offer resources to boost moms' success rates! The hospitals are baby friendly and further push breastfeeding into the eyes and minds of the families there.

But I also lived in Albany, before Tiger Lily was born. My husband relocated for work, and after a few haphazard months of trying to work through the 3-plus hour commutes and extremely limited family time, I joined him. But Albany isn't the same kinda town as my sweet Peachtree Corners. Not by a long shot. My doctor never mentioned how I would be feeding her. The hospital was supposedly baby friendly but the nurses were not overly concerned with helping me breastfeed. If I didn't know how, I would have been on my own to learn because they simply watched the baby latch (thank goodness she got it) and informed me that I could call the nurse if something didn't feel right. There was no actual lactation consultant, only a nurse who admitted that she only had her own breastfeeding personal experience but no formal lactation consultant training. (Would be the blind leading the blind, eh?)

I distinctly remember them calling me "Miss Atlanta" and kinda snickering amongst themselves because what had become a norm for me (doctors and nurses giving the best information regardless of perceived socioeconomic status) seemed to be over the top to them.

4. Perhaps the most difficult--we have a lot of past baggage regarding breastfeeding.

I call it the Mammy Complex.

Black women were wet nurses during slavery, having to nurse the master's children before their own or face brutal beatings and death--assuming they hadn't been separated from their own newborns yet, because babies were sold as well.

Fast forward a few decades. (It really isn't that far removed.) Because of those emotional traumas, and to provide the same things to their babies as their White counterparts, Black women embraced formula.

(I personally believe not breastfeeding was a way for them to reclaim their bodies and take a stand for their ancestors. Kinda like, "Look, great grandma. They can't take it away from us now. And our babies are getting the same "better" options as theirs.")

5. Despite the fact that all science is doing is trying to recreate breastmilk, and despite the fact that every formula can states "breast is best," Black women have embraced formula BECAUSE BUYING IT INDICATES A WEIRD SOCIOECONOMIC ADVANTAGE. Outside the cultural aspect and what I call generational trauma, we have been raised to think that formula is fine.

It is fine. It's fine in the same way 27-cent packs of Ramen and other inexpensive processed foods are fine. When you are hungry, you take--usually quite happily--what you get. Babies cannot choose, so if mom has decided on that formula, then that's what baby adjusts to and accepts.

While we might go out and get the most expensive brand of formula, touting the most health benefits, the closest one to MILK WE ALREADY CAN MAKE, we  miss an important point: formula will never be tailored to our child by development, and feeding them formula just because we can afford it is not really putting us ahead.

It's weird, yes?

...

Clearly I can go on, but I'll leave those bits for you to chew on right now.

When I say I do this first for my babies, second for the CULTCHA, I mean it.

The benefits to Black moms (any moms, but I'm talking about us here) simply seeing other Black moms breastfeeding and sticking to it, are immeasurable. I'll cover that in another post because I don't want this to run too long. We live in a 140-character world these days and I don't want to bore anyone...

But this CULTCHA.

I do it for us, but I also do it for us.

I always imagine, when I start to think about quitting (and I do--as does every breastfeeding mom), I remind myself of three things.

1. This is the only time I can truthfully say that something I do purely for my own kids, can help someone else. As I said, we need to see ourselves represented in this journey. Someone had to start the ripple, and I have to do my part to make it continue.

2. As we return to our natural hair and eat better foods ourselves, the natural progression must continue: we need to go back to feeding our babies their perfect food, whether we feed directly or express and use a good bottle. Returning to natural means we need to take our babies too, right?

3. As personal as breastfeeding is, it cannot be so personal that I can't share every bit of knowledge with other moms. If they receive it, that is. Triumphs and fails too.

I feel responsible for bringing some light to it.