Bid to boost breast-feeding where it lags - among black moms

When Keta Brown's daughter, Naomi, was born seven months ago, Brown knew almost nothing about breast-feeding. "My parents didn't breast-feed, so they didn't know" either, she added.

But the North Philadelphia woman found support where many people do in 2015: Facebook. Through a group that chats online and meets in person, she received technical advice, commiseration, and encouragement.

"If I didn't have that group, I think I would have been done at two weeks," she said.

That type of community-building was the goal of Black Breast-feeding Week, a nationwide initiative running Aug. 25 through 31 to encourage African American women to try to stick with breast-feeding.

On Saturday, Brown and a dozen others gathered in Fernhill Park, in Germantown, as part of a nationwide event, "Lift Every Baby," to show support. They discussed their experiences, nursed as needed, and symbolically lifted their children - a manifestation of the impact they hope breast-feeding will have.

"Black Breast-feeding Week is really about recognizing that, for over 40 years, there's been this huge disparity in breast-feeding rates," said Kimberly Seals Allers, a New York-based activist and author who started the nationwide event three years ago.

She said that's tied to practices by hospitals, which are less likely to educate black mothers about breast-feeding; to marketing by formula companies; and to inherited trauma, dating back to when enslaved black women served as wet nurses.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 58.9 percent of black mothers initiated breast-feeding in 2008, compared with 75.2 percent of whites and 80 percent of Hispanics.

"Philadelphia has a high black infant mortality rate," Seals Allers said in a phone interview. "We're looking at breast-feeding as an infant mortality reduction measure."

The 2012 infant mortality rate in Philadelphia was 15.5 deaths per 1,000 live births by black mothers. That was triple the rate for white mothers.

Nikki Lee, lactation consultant for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, said supportive communities are critical. She's been trying to enlist day-care providers to work with nursing mothers who want to provide pumped breast milk for their children, rather than formula. Often, she said, they resist.

"Hospitals in Philadelphia are finally getting on board," she said, "but the next hurdle is when they go back to their jobs."

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