Breastfeeding While Black
Novella will be turning one year old on 31 December. I have no desire to stop breastfeeding her yet. However, I am being pressured by other black women and men to stop. This I found disheartening considering our high infant mortality rate. People are saying things like “she can drink regular milk now.” Please explain to me what is regular milk? The dairy industry is so disgusting I would never feed myself or my baby the stuff. My milk IS regular milk. Somehow milk from a cow is better for my child than milk from my breast? Oh and did I mention the milk from my breast is free?
When I decide to breastfeed Novella I had no one to look to for help. I did not know a single (black) woman who breastfeed. Considering many have to get assistance from the State to buy Enfamil, I begin to wonder why black women opted out of this process so frequently.
After processing I came to the conclusion that many black women had grandmothers who still negatively associate breastfeeding with their mothers and grandmothers role as ‘wet nurses’ during slavery. Slave owners used and purchased Black women as wet nurses for their children and would force these moms to stop nursing their babies to care for the master’s child. Also because breastfeeding reduces fertility, the slave owners would force black mothers to stop breastfeeding earlier than what was required, so that they could continue breeding and producing more slave children. Black women’s mothering experience was rough. It was short & difficult. It was hard, and almost impossible to take time to nurture and love the process when you were a machine. This ideology trickled down generations.
These were actions of women who were not free. Not free from oppression, not free from poverty, not free from sadness. I am. I have resources at my disposal. I am happy. I am free (mostly). This is why I choose to breastfeed.
Today black babies are dying 2.2 times the rate of white babies. This is mostly because African American babies are more likely to be born premature or sickly. Often times what keeps premature babies alive is the mother’s milk. What helps children fight off diseases is mother’s milk. Tomorrow Novella will officially be eleven months old. She has been sick once and she was able to fight it off with little to no medicine. She has never had a diaper rash. She has never had an ear infection. Mother’s milk is what gives the babies super powers.
Get this, black women have the lowest breastfeeding rates but the highest infant mortality rates at 44 deaths per 100,000 births. ‘
So I will not be pressured to stop providing my baby with what is giving her the best chance at life she got. But I sincerely thank you for your concern.
