By Naomi Bromberg Bar-Yam, PhD
So many gaps to close
As World Breastfeeding Week draws to a close and we turn our attention to US National Breastfeeding Month, let’s take a moment to celebrate our work and accomplishments in seeing and closing gaps in our local, national, and global community.
New mothers have shared breastfeeding support since the beginning of time. We feed one another’s babies, help one another start our parenting and breastfeeding journeys with experience, advice, herbs, child care, delicious food. For almost as long, government family policies have benefited from the knowledge and lived experience of many experts, beginning with mothers, midwives, wet nurses, and now including physicians, professional lactation supporters, nurses, dieticians, and researchers. We have millennia of experience closing many gaps in achieving breastfeeding success.
Ethical gaps
In 1977, breastfeeding advocates saw an enormous ethical gap in the marketing of infant formula, particularly in low-income countries, resulting in deaths and serious illnesses because formula company employees, posing as nurses, dispensed advice and free product samples. The advocates took action, launching a multi-year, successful global boycott of Nestle, the biggest formula company engaged in these unethical practices.
In 1981, the boycott resulted in the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes. The Code has guided governments, advocates, professional organizations, research journals, and NGOs for over 40 years in ethical practices within and beyond breastfeeding. Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition (MBC) continues to educate mothers, providers, and advocates about Code violations still occurring in our own communities: at our fall conference, Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC, will speak on armoring parents against formula marketing tactics.
Social gaps
For decades, we have been working hard to define and achieve normalization of breastfeeding. These gaps manifest in two important areas, breastfeeding in public and the workplace.
Now, the federal government and all 50 states have passed laws that women can breastfeed anywhere they otherwise have a right to be. This includes the Fairness for Breastfeeding Mothers Act, requiring public buildings to have protected non-bathroom spaces available for employees and visitors to nurse or pump, as well as the Friendly Airports for Mothers Act, mandating convenient nursing/pumping stations in airports.
The PUMP Act and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, recently passed by Congress, have significantly advanced pregnancy and breastfeeding protections in the workplace. However, workplace protections must include paid parental leave, only mandated in a few states. You can learn about the legislative work still ahead of us and how to get involved on the United States Breastfeeding Committee website.
Access gaps
Wide gaps in breastfeeding rates and support as well as infant and maternal mortality and morbidity are well-documented and are part of much larger health and life disparities throughout our society. World Breastfeeding Week and National Breastfeeding Month are opportunities to highlight two areas:
- Equitable access (insurance coverage) for doula, lactation consultant, and midwifery care and quality breast pumps for fragile hospitalized babies and mothers; and
- Support for and training of professional lactation supporters and doulas of color.
MBC’s efforts contribute to filling the gaping gaps in both these areas. For several years, we have advocated for an important pump coverage bill in the Massachusetts legislature, at the same time educating legislators and the community about maternal health disparities and the importance of equitable care. MBC’s DRIVE (Diversity, Representation, Inclusivity, Vision, Equity) Committee offers training, camaraderie, and scholarships to increase the diversity of lactation support professionals in our community.
We welcome you to join MBC, get involved in the committee that best suits your interest and skills, and attend our conference to meet others and learn more about the breastfeeding landscape in Massachusetts. Together we are building the next steps in closing the gaps and providing breastfeeding support for all.
Naomi Bromberg Bar-Yam, PhD, has been working in maternal and child health for 35 years as an educator, researcher, advocate, and writer. She is past president of the Human Milk Banking Association of North America (HMBANA) and is the founding director emerita of Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast, which provides safe donor milk to hospitals and families throughout the northeastern US. As an MBC board member, she chairs the organization’s Advocacy Committee. Learn more about her on her LactSpeak profile.
Comments are closed