Interview with Blacktating 12/17/2010

Recently, in my private lactation practice I have been asked by some of my black clients for referrals to black support groups or IBCLC's of color. And much to my amazement, I discovered there are very few breastfeeding resources. So, this discovery led me to reach out to Elita with Blacktating for some insight. Our interview:

1. What prompted to you to start your blog?

I was on maternity leave and I was breastfeeding and it seemed like all I did was breastfeed and all I wanted to talk about was breastfeeding. My husband, mother and friends were sick of me talking about breastfeeding, so I got into a lot of websites, forums and blogs for nursing moms. I looked around and found two breastfeeding sites written by black women, but both had stopped updating. After reading through the archives, I thought, "Well, why don't I start my own breastfeeding blog?" and so I did. The blog that I had really enjoyed reading the most was called Mocha Milk so it was really hard for me to pick a name because I thought that was the best blog name possible. Blacktating came to me and seemed just cheesey enough that people would remember it easily.

2. How do you respond to the people who say something like "Women should not be guilted into breastfeeding?" For me, I feel this is an appeal to get an ok to formula feed. I would love to hear your response to this common statement.

First of all, I don't think you can guilt anyone into breastfeeding. There will always be some women who don't want to breastfeed, even with all of the support in the world, and that's OK. I believe guilt is an internal emotion and either you feel guilty or you don't, but no one can make you feel guilty and without the proverbial gun to the head, no one can make you do something (especially not constantly, for 6 months or a year) that you don't want to do. For example, when I went back to work, my son was about 7 months old. I rented a hospital-grade pump and pumped every 2-3 hours at work and before bed and in the middle of the night and watched my supply dwindle down to drops. He was getting formula full-time at daycare by 10 months. I don't feel at all guilty about this because I know I did the best I could. For whatever reason, my body hated the pump and I couldn't get the hang of hand expressing. It wasn't ideal but I'm inclined to be angry that I couldn't take any more maternity leave, then feel guilty at not being able to "exclusively breastfeed." I think moms who say they this are usually feeling shame more than guilt. They know they chose what worked best for them, but that breastfeeding would've been better for the baby. It's probably difficult to reconcile that.

3. How can we help improve the breastfeeding rates among African American women? (according to the 2006 CDC report Black/AA women ranked the lowest, for exclusive breastfeeding for 3 months, in the US, of all the races. :)

Well, if I knew the answer to this I'd be rich (or at least famous!) For working class black moms, better support and encouragement through WIC would probably be a good start, as would laws protecting the right to express milk at work, even if you work a blue collar job. Of course paid maternity leave and on-site government subsidized daycare would help out all women. I think we have an issue where there hasn't been any breastfeeding in many black families for two or three generations, so there needs to be a cultural shift but I think that's beginning to happen. ALL of my black friends have breastfed, at least for a while, some into toddlerhood. As their sisters and cousins and friends see them do this, they're more likely to try to breastfeed as well. I'd like to see more images of black women breastfeeding, I'd like to see a lot more black lactation consultants, I'd like to see more mother-to-mother support available for middle class black women who don't qualify for WIC but may have trouble affording a visit to an IBCLC. I think that modesty and privacy is a big issue for a lot of black women when it comes to nursing in public, so mother-to-mother support would help here as well. And we've got to work on dispelling some myths about breastfeeding in the black community!

My Summary

I am so inspired by Elita's wisdom. Just think if more women were to start blogs like hers how it would change our society.Her answers to the third question leave me eager to do something.I challenge myself to change my own marketing literature to reflect women of color. I will also work to be more culturally more aware of black women's desire for privacy and SUPPORT.I would love to hear any feedback you have about this subject and how we can work together to raise the breastfeeding rates among this population of parents.

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