Category: National Breastfeeding Month

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Feliz Semana de La Lactancia Latina!

Last year marked the very first  Semana de La Lactancia Latina as part of National Breastfeeding Month. Though the official celebration is still young, the 2024 tema: Reclamando Nuestra Cultura Por Medio de la Lactancia/ 2024 theme: Reclaiming Culture Through Lactation (September 3-9), reminds us of the ancient and deeply-rooted birth and infant feeding traditions throughout Latin culture.

Photo by Rosalba Ruiz, used with permission from Latina/x Breastfeeding Week/ https://www.facebook.com/Latinxbreastfeedingweek

Semana de La Lactancia Latina was originally created by the Union de Lideres de Lactancia Latino (Latinx Lactation Collective) in an effort to uplift voices from the Latino/x community and to celebrate the diverse cultures of Latino communities while also bringing awareness to the unique barriers faced by these communities including language justice. 

LLL USA shared this lively account of breastfeeding– Celebrating Latina/x Breastfeeding Week (Semana de La Lactancia Latina): Chuchú— a window into the beautiful act of raising children on one peninsula.  The original and English translation were contributed by La Leche League Leaders in the LLL Intercultural Area.

“In Yucatan, since ancient times, we have a specific word to identify breastfeeding [both as a verb and as a substantive]; it is a short word, but to me, as a proud Yucatecan, it feels full of joy, abundance, and comfort. Chuchú comes from the Maya language, specifically from the verb Chu’uch which means to breastfeed.

Chuchú is as standardized in our culture as cochinita pibil, a delicious typical dish made with pork, seasoned with local spices and condiments, as well as sour orange, whose cooking is usually done by digging a hole in the ground, covering it with banana leaves, stones and charcoal and takes hours under low heat to reach the perfect flavor. Similar to Chuchú, it requires patience, delicacy in its process, combining both ancestral and present-time skills.

A typical way to give Chuchú in Yucatán is to do so while lying in a hammock, swaying naturally or vigorously to cool off from the hot climate of the peninsula. I confess that this is my favorite way, position to give Chuchú to my youngest son, Marcelo, the third child or xtup of the family (pequeño or menor in Maya), to enjoy these moments like I did with our other children. The hammock, Chuchú, and our love are the perfect combination that has prevailed since the generations of my ancestors.” 

Source: United States Breastfeeding Committee

HealthConnect One’s Brenda Reyes, RN, CLC in Reclaiming Latino/Hispanic birth and breastfeeding traditions reiterates that Latino/Hispanic culture is not homogenous, so she shares tradition from a personal perspective. 

During her pregnancy, her family rallied around her, protecting her and her growing baby from the effects of stress. 

“My ancestors had a very clear idea and connection about emotion and stress [during pregnancy and beyond,]” Reyes begins. “They knew the impact of emotion.”

That meant household chores were alleviated from her routine during the “Cuarentena,” 40 days after the postpartum period. Food and nutrition were central to the support she received too. She learned from her mother and grandmother about the importance of healthy activity during pregnancy, and the way movement could replace medicalized pain intervention during birth. Once she gave birth, she carried her baby in a rebozo, the same way her mother carried her. 

In conjunction with uplifting beautiful traditions, Reyes reminds us that we must also acknowledge the barriers Latino/Hispanic families face and take action to diminish these challenges.  

For one, Reyes explains language barriers. 

Not only are institutions failing to provide health services in a culturally humble or sensitive way; at its worst, information and services aren’t even being communicated or provided to them, she begins. 

“We deal with institutional racism,” Reyes continues.  And Latino/Hispanic families are impacted by immigration issues. 

“Immigration impacts a very large percentage of our community,” Reyes says. Often unvoiced, she says immigration needs to become part of our national discussion around maternal child health, because Latino/Hispanic communities carry the stress of immigration status which has far-reaching implications like foregoing or discontinuing prenatal and postpartum care. 

https://www.ourmilkyway.org/accessing-the-milky-way-scholarship-recipient-inspires-positive-change-in-generations-to-come/

Moreover, Latina mothers are working mothers and need workplace policies to support them. There’s also a lack of leadership opportunities for Latino people.

This year, you can engage through the Latina/x Breastfeeding Week Facebook page by posting your events to their calendar, joining a virtual ceremony, among other opportunities. Find other ways to act by following the Binational Breastfeeding Coalition on instagram. 

For more Latino/Hispanic perinatal stories and resources, check out: 

Hispanic Health Council’s Breastfeeding Heritage and Pride (BHP) Program heals, empowers and celebrates through peer counseling model

Celebrating Semana de La Lactancia Latina and the efforts of Lactancia Latina en el Suroeste de Kansas

Young, determined and capable: celebrating youth advocates within maternal child health

USBC’s Hispanic Heritage Month resources 

PAHO 



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Happy Asian American Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Breastfeeding Week 2024: Bridging the Gaps

National Breastfeeding Month is such a dynamic time of year on account of the weekly observances that honor unique cultures and voices within the wider realm of lactation and breastfeeding. 

This week, we celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Breastfeeding Week (August 15 to 21) with the theme Bridging the Gaps, in a call for advocacy around culturally tailored education and community-reflective lactation support. 

We’re revisiting a previous publication, as we did earlier this summer celebrating various national celebrations, in honor of AANHPI Breastfeeding Week. 

We hope you’ll enjoy this reworking of A collection of stories by and about those in the AANHPI community, which was originally published last summer. 

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The 2023 Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Breastfeeding Week Telling our own stories. Elevating our voices was rich with opportunities to engage, learn and celebrate. 

Gorgeous content from Asian, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander (ASAP!) Breastfeeding Taskforce’s Social Media Toolkit 2023

As part of the observance, the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee AANHPI Caucus presented the AANHPI Lactation Community Forum, an open panel discussion where AANHPI community members shared about their journeys to becoming lactation support professionals as well as provided guidance on how we can further build community capacity to support AANHPI families.

The Alameda County’s Asian, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander (ASAP!) Breastfeeding Taskforce AANHPI Social Media Toolkit produced shareable social media content including messages and captions in the toolkit which have been translated into 11 different AANHPI languages: Chinese (both traditional and simplified), Farsi, Hindi, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Native Hawaiian, Samoan, Tagalog, and Vietnamese.

It’s also become tradition to host the AANHPI Coloring Pages Contest. 

In an engaging discussion with Tonya Lang, MPH, CHES, IBCLC and Grace Yee in 2022, they described the diversity that exists under the AANHPI umbrella, shaking away the stereotypical idea that Asian culture is monolithic.

The Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence begins to describe the complexity of AAPNHPI groupings and the forces that shape identity in Census Date & API Identities. AAPI DATA, which provides demographic data and policy research on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, compiled some wonderful visuals to help shape the numbers.

The overgeneralization of the API community has led to some misleading data about breastfeeding rates. On an aggregate level, initiation and duration rates are relatively high, but the statistics don’t account for stark disparities within these population groups. This piece covers this phenomenon in more depth and offers strategies for tailoring infant feeding support in the Chinese American population.

More gorgeous content from Asian, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander (ASAP!) Breastfeeding Taskforce’s Social Media Toolkit 2023

As Dr. Magda Peck has pointed out, numbers and data are important because they drive decisions and policies, but they also have the potential to sanitize humanity. That’s where stories come in. Not only do they humanize the numbers, they can also help us make sense of the data.

In an effort to demonstrate the complexity and diversity of this population, we have collected several stories by and about those in the AANHPI community.

First up, is To-wen Tseng and her contributions to the San Diego County Breastfeeding Coalition’s blog. Tseng wrote most recently about her ‘why’ reflecting on National Breastfeeding Month. Read that piece here.

Joanne Datangel-Gallardo, MD, DPPS of the National Children’s Hospital, Philippines has worked extensively with relactation efforts. Read about Dr. Datangel-Gallardo’s work here.

Also out of the Philippines is a piece by Micaela Papa detailing how breastfeeding saved one baby’s  life and helped her mother recover from the stress of Typhoon Odette.

Not far south from this archipelago, is the island nation of Timor Leste. Here, emergency response efforts to protect breastfeeding have saved the lives of many. Community members manage and intercept artificial baby milk and other ultra-processed food product donations among other components of the nurturing care model. Read about these efforts here.

In Indonesia, efforts are also underway to combat commercial milk formula companies. Find a simple model for reporting Code violations here.

Jenny Lei Ravelo writes about the tangle of infant feeding complexities on Indonesia’s remote islands complete with stunning photos in partnership with the 1000 Days Fund.

In India, the Foundation for Mother & Child Health (FMCH) works to empower families from vulnerable communities with actionable information and services, resulting in health seeking behavior and nutritious food choices in order to tackle maternal child malnutrition, ultimately breaking the cycle of poverty. Read about the organization’s impact here.

And another beautiful collection from Asian, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander (ASAP!) Breastfeeding Taskforce’s Social Media Toolkit 2023

In Spring 2023, the Asian Pacific Islander Breastfeeding Task Force(APIBTF) a part of Breastfeed LA, tailored the Dietary Guidelines for infants and toddlers for Chinese and Vietnamese communities, a project that augments APIBTF’s sister organization Alameda County’s Asian, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander (ASAP!) Breastfeeding Taskforce’s Continuity of Care (CoC) Blueprint Project Prenatal Toolkit for AANHPI families. You can find out more about the efforts to center culture in health here.

Also exemplifying culture centered in health, is the Hmong Breastfeeding Initiative (HBI). With funding from Reducing Disparities in Breastfeeding through Continuity of Care Identifying Care Gaps grant from National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), the Hmong Breastfeeding Coalition (HBC) conducted an environmental scan of the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minn.) on breastfeeding promotion and support for child-bearing age Hmong women and families. Read more here.

Tiffany Pao Yang has played a crucial role in this work. The daughter of Hmong refugees, she is especially invested in helping change the narrative around infant feeding in the Hmong population. Read part of her story here.

 

MORE TO EXPLORE

  • Professionals who identify as AANHPI or work PRIMARILY with AANHPI communities in birthing or lactation, are invited to complete a 10 minute nationwide survey and share it with colleagues.

The AANHPI Lactation Collaborative seeks to compile and create a resource directory to share publicly on their website. Your answers will also help inform future projects focused on increasing access to lactation support and resources for AANHPI birthing people.

If you have completed this survey in the past, please only retake it if you need to update your responses.

Responses are confidential other than information voluntarily provided for the AANHPI resource directory.

To take the survey, go to: https://tinyurl.com/AANHPICollabSurvey

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Happy World Breastfeeding Week and National Breastfeeding Month!

It’s World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) and National Breastfeeding Month (NBM)! This time of year, we come together to celebrate our successes, reflect on the challenges we’ve overcome and those that are still ahead, to continue our momentum and reignite passion and purpose.

The 2024 World Breastfeeding Week campaign’s focus is on survival, health and wellbeing. It showcases the need to improve breastfeeding support to reduce inequalities that exist in our society with a special focus on breastfeeding in times of emergencies and crises. There are so many ways to engage. Check out this interactive map here. 

And this year’s NBM theme, Nourish, Sustain, Thrive, shines a light on why protecting, promoting, and supporting lactation is so important for the human life cycle. This summer, we honor the incredible work that organizations are doing to make the world a little more friendly for new parents and families, and highlight how individuals, funders, and policymakers can contribute to a strong and sustainable lactation field. 

We are excited to kick off NBM sharing a short Q&A with U.S. Breastfeeding Committee’s Senior Collective Impact Coordinator  Erin Fortuna, IBCLC. Among her many amazing achievements, Fortuna designed the beautiful NBM logo.

Fortuna’s personal, adverse experiences with birth and breastfeeding in 2017 led her down the path of wanting to make a difference for people in her community, particularly in service to LGBTQIA+ families. As a queer parent, she became a peer-to-peer lactation counselor because she says she wanted to better support those who wished to feed their babies human milk. This ultimately led her to her journey toward becoming an IBCLC.  In 2022, when she came to the USBC, she was newly postpartum with her second child and “knee-deep in the throes of [on-cue] nursing a 3-month-old, constant diaper changes, and all the challenges that come along with new parenthood…at the same time navigating a career change.”

“The USBC was so incredibly accommodating, which enabled me to nurse on demand for an additional two-and-a-half years,” Fortuna continues. “I knew that my ‘luck’ in having this flexibility shouldn’t be luck at all – this should be the standard! From paid leave to equitable lactation support compensation, this journey is a long and winding road toward change, and I am grateful to be a part of such a hardworking team dedicated to a vision for thriving families and communities.” 

Q: What else makes you proud to be a part of USBC?

A: Honestly, so much work happens behind the scenes at the USBC, and this is exciting for me! I get to see organizations come together to collaboratively work on a common goal and knock down barriers that previously separated them. I get to learn from those in the field who are breaking barriers to get the work done and carving their own path to progress. I get to be there to support and celebrate legislative wins and learn how to navigate the disappointment when efforts become derailed or stalled. It’s pretty incredible to watch these building blocks get stacked at the USBC and built as a collective! 

Q: What are you most looking forward to this NBM?

A: I love seeing how many organizations and community-led initiatives create events and celebrations for National Breastfeeding Month. From cultural weekly celebrations to milk banks to hospitals to lactation support programs, every year, I look forward to seeing photos of celebrations and achievements shared with the USBC! It’s a really exciting time, and the momentum from all the awareness generated and the actions taken in support and celebration of NBM-related activities can continue to have an impact year-round.

 Q: You created the NBM logo to reflect “a special harmony and peace that aligns when a nursing dyad’s needs are met.”  Can you please describe your approach to creating the design? 

A: I have been exploring the possibilities of AI generation as it relates to people and faces. We have such limited access to stock images that it becomes challenging to not use the same parent-and-baby or breastfeeding-baby photo that the rest of the field is using. The USBC does have a photo gallery that organizations can use for non-commercial, educational purposes, but I was looking for a new face!  With the help of AI tools, I was able to generate a generic likeness of a dyad that harnessed feelings of harmony and togetherness. From that image, I creatively styled it to reflect a more illustrated and colorful feel. I really wanted it to feel vibrant and lively but also “close to home” for those partners and organizations that would ultimately use it. My hope is that even if the likeness of the dyad doesn’t resonate with folks, the warm embrace between the parent and baby will.

One of my favorite things about NBM is seeing the creativity behind each weekly observance logo and how each organization makes its celebration(s) unique. I like to collect things that support the efforts of these observances like stickers and t-shirts. I have a whole drawer full of them at home!

Q: What’s the best way for folks to get involved with USBC’s important work during NBM? 

A:  Be sure to subscribe to USBC communications! In each edition of our Weekly Wire newsletter, starting in mid-July and ending in mid-September, there is a special section related to National Breastfeeding Month activities. We have a searchable archive of past editions, a form to submit news and information for future issues, and an open call to the field asking for NBM-related activities that the USBC can amplify. Our team sends emails throughout NBM: offering opportunities to celebrate, learn, connect, and take action to help create a landscape of breastfeeding support for families across the U.S. We hope your readership will join us in making a difference this National Breastfeeding Month!

 

A few more suggestions from OMW on how to participate in WBW, NBM and beyond

Raise awareness by purchasing your NBM gear here. 

Healthy Children Project has released a new round of Accessing the Milky Way scholarships in celebration of WBW. Apply here.

Coffee and tea chats hosted by the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine will be available throughout WBW.  

Watch the Global Breastfeeding Collective’s replay of Are we there yet? and register for Strength in Numbers. 

Acquaint yourself with corporate wrongdoing, the forces that seek to destroy the power of the mother baby dyad.  



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