Tag: Accessing the Milky Way

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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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LCTC participant fueled by daughter’s poor experiences

Shipley pictured with her grandchild.

As Tanya Shipley, a recent Accessing the Milky Way scholarship awardee, shares her experience working through the Lactation Counselor Training Course (LCTC) thus far, I sense both enthusiasm and relief.

“I love it!” Shipley exclaims. “I am learning so much stuff, oh my gosh, I love it. I  am just in awe.”

She goes on to explain that while she has always been interested in women’s health and wellness, she only became interested in maternal child health after her 35-year-old daughter’s pregnancy and birth this year.

Not unlike many women, and especially BIPOC women, Shipley’s daughter did not receive competent lactation care in the hospital.

“She was really bummed about it,” Shipley begins. “When she got home, she was having issues because she thought that she wasn’t producing enough milk. She felt like she let the baby down.”

Shipley blames some of what was lacking on her “own ignorance” as the grandmother.

At one point Shipley recalls suggesting: “Why don’t you just [give the baby] a little formula right now because she’s hungry.”

“It bothers me today because everything I am learning now,” Shipley reflects.  “It didn’t have to be that way.”

Shipley circles back to how much she is learning through the LCTC. This is where I hear a sense of relief in her tone; she is now well-equipped to share the knowledge she gains with not only new families but women her age, so that they can help their children, as she explains. It’s well-known that grandmothers have the capacity to influence exclusive breastfeeding. [More here and here.]

“After I finish a module,  I will call my daughter and I will share with her some of the things I am learning,” Shipley says.

Shipley recently left the entertainment industry and started volunteering for the Happy Mama Health Baby Alliance and Joy in Birthing Foundation. She also completed a birth doula workshop and finds herself exploring where she can make the biggest impact. She’s considering starting her own non-profit and providing lactation care in the hospital setting, fueled by the lack of care that her daughter received.

You can read more about grandmothers’ influence on infant feeding in For many, grandmothers are the village.

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Medical librarian to perinatal services manager, LCTC participant strives to improve Black maternal health

Christian Minter, MSLIS is the eldest of twelve siblings. Her mother gave birth both at home and in the hospital, and she breastfed all of her children, so Minter says she was accustomed to seeing the full range of options when it comes to maternity care.

About ten years ago, Minter became interested in maternal and child health after hearing friends share their often less than ideal birth experiences. She discovered that informed choice was a rarity in their care. As Minter learned more about the disparities in birth outcomes among Black women and babies, she became passionate about working to improve Black maternal health.

At the time, Minter worked as a medical librarian supporting families with access to health information. 

“There was only so much I could do as a librarian to support maternal and child health,” Minter reflects. 

Her work evolved and in 2019, Minter began her public health graduate studies. As a project for the course Introduction to Health Disparities and Health Equity at University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Public Health, Minter created a beautiful mini-documentary about doula care for Black women. 

Minter also served as the manager of maternal infant health initiatives for March of Dimes Nebraska, Black maternal health organizer for I Be Black Girl and collaborated on the Omaha Reproductive Well-being Project. 

Now, Minter works as the perinatal services manager at Community of Hope in Washington, D.C. She is currently on maternity leave with her first baby who is three months old and cooed sweetly during our phone call. 

“Breastfeeding him has been an eye opening experience,” Minter shares.  “It’s one thing to talk about maternal and child health, and another to experience it firsthand. It’s giving me a greater appreciation of the breastfeeding journey of families.  It’s  increased my passion to support other families.” 

Minter shares that she had her eye on the Lactation Counselor Training Course (LCTC) for quite some time, but could never sacrifice the time away from work for the week-long, in-person training. As one of the most recent awardees of the Accessing the Milky Way scholarship, Minter says she’s enjoying the online, self-paced format and learning about the physiology of breastfeeding. 

Minter plans to use her training to support their patient population at Community of Hope. Additionally, she says she’d like to make lactation education and support more accessible to those living in Prince George County, Md., as families often need to travel outside the county for community-based support. 

Minter encourages readers to follow Community of Hope on social media. Their breastfeeding classes are open to the general public. The organization also accepts donations of supplies for families like diapers, maternity clothing and books. Check out their wishlist here and learn about other ways to support their work here.  



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LCTC participant rewrites cultural norms with “Afrofuturist healing modalities”

“As you focus on clearing your generational trauma, do not forget to claim your generational strengths. Your ancestors gave you more than just wounds.” — Xavier Dagba

 

Audrey Gentry-Brown, Full Spectrum Birth Sista, Certified Blactation Educator (CBE), Student Midwife, and Medicine Woman in Loudoun County, Va. often found herself asking why?

While present at her sisters’ childbirth experiences, she couldn’t help but question the medical interventions imposed on their bodies. “Why aren’t these doctors allowing their bodies to do what they were designed to do?” she wondered. 

Audrey, hailing from a family with maternal origins in the Southern United States and paternal roots in Jamaica, noticed a stark difference in breastfeeding customs. In the U.S., it appeared that nobody from her maternal lineage embraced breastfeeding, while in Jamaica, it was a widespread tradition.The puzzle deepened when she observed the aversion of many Black women to breastfeeding. 

Just as she diligently tends to her garden, Audrey embarked on a quest for answers and is now sharing the abundance of knowledge she has cultivated.

In her own words, she is rewriting cultural norms within her community, introducing “Afrofuturist healing modalities” that reconnect to “ancestral magic.”

“I engage in this work to revive and reclaim the traditions that we have abandoned. I advocate for, educate, and guide our women through a system that often neglects our needs. My dream is for us to give birth as our foremothers did, within the comfort of our homes, surrounded by love,” Audrey passionately explains.

She says she sees a glimmer of hope in the growing trend of families choosing to reclaim their traditional birthing practices by opting for out-of-hospital births, which grants them greater control and the ability to curate their birth experience.

Having recently been awarded the Accessing the Milky Way scholarship, she is currently pursuing the Lactation Counselor Training Course (LCTC) and continually equipping herself with knowledge to assist her community in addressing deeply ingrained trauma related to infant feeding.

Audrey points out a concerning statistic: Black women are more likely to face in-hospital formula introduction (Echols, 2019), along with other marketing tactics targeting them.

“I’m here to tell you that there’s a better way,” she declares.

Moreover, she is dedicated to educating families about traditional practices like babywearing, which encourages breastfeeding and responsive parenting.

In her quest to preserve cultural traditions, Audrey invokes an African proverb: “When an elder dies, a library burns down.” She urges people to reach out to the matriarchs and patriarchs in their families, seeking knowledge of their ancestral customs, and ultimately, to revive, safeguard, and uphold those traditions.

To support Audrey’s mission, you can explore her apothecary or enlist her birthwork services to contribute to her efforts to gather supplies for her future midwifery practice.

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LCTC participant is a catalyst for change

Natasha Aldridge has endured two laparoscopic surgeries and induced menopause to treat stage four endometriosis. Through it all, she found herself bouncing from doctor to doctor, looking for ways to manage pain and to get answers. The process was all-consuming, forcing her to exit nursing school prematurely.

“I was very unhappy with myself,” Aldridge shares. “I felt like my body was broken.” 

Eventually, struggling through the personal challenges, Aldridge identified the larger forces at play. 

“I realized how maternal health needed to be easier to navigate and more accessible,” she comments.

Now, Aldridge works as what she calls a Perinatal Professional and Maternal Ambassador. Her business, Natural Queen Essentials, supports feminine wellness from the first menstrual cycle through menopause. Her collective work includes facilitating holistic wellness options,  Trauma Informed Doula Trainings through Cocolife.black  and volunteering for The MOM’s Tour (Maternal Outcomes Matter)  to provide information on lactation and the importance of doulas.

Aldridge is also an Advanced Prison Doula  with Ostara Initiative where she supports women in local jails and helps to educate staff about milk expression and storage. She partners with The Diverse Birth Collective, Project Empower and  Virginia Prison Birth Project to facilitate peer support groups, prenatal yoga and the transport of milk.  Currently, only six states “have laws with written policies on breastfeeding and lactation support for incarcerated postpartum people in the U.S,” according to the National University-Based Collaborative on Justice-Involved Women & Children (JIWC). 

Aldridge is one of the most recent individuals to earn the Accessing the Milky Way scholarship, and she says her studies through the Lactation Counselor Training Course (LCTC) have already helped her help others like cheering on incarcerated moms and babies during their first latch.  

“It’s a domino effect,” she says. “The more knowledge I provide through peer support, the more information will pass through the justice system.” 

Aldridge was drawn to the LCTC because she found she lacked the ability to provide lactation and breastfeeding support. She shares that she “easily gave up breastfeeding” with her two daughters, because she was never educated on the impact of infant feeding. None of the women in her family breastfed either. Aldridge struggled through postpartum mood disorders (PPMDs) too.

“I didn’t have the capacity to even know where to begin,” she says. Like so many mothers, Aldridge’s language pins herself as the responsible one for not breastfeeding, when in reality, breastfeeding is not a one-woman job and requires greater systemic supports.  

The LCTC is illuminating many details about infant feeding and its history, Aldridge shares. She says she’s finding the counseling portion “excellent as well” and is able to apply the strategies to all areas of her career. 

“Knowing the background and the science is pulling everything together in my whole journey,” she says.

In the beginning of September, Aldridge spent time on Capitol Hill with Mom Congress learning about policy making and how to tell stories to help influence legislation important to families, one of the elements essential to improving infant feeding practices in the U.S.  

Aldridge was also recently honored with the Catalyst of Change award from Endo Black, Inc.–a Black women-led advocacy group founded by Lauren Kornegay for Black women living with endometriosis– which “recognizes an ambitious leader and influential person in the endometriosis community… [who] engages the community in a meaningful and high-impact way.”

Aldridge’s ambition and accomplishments are certainly ones to celebrate, but she says that it’s all bigger than herself. 

You can support Aldridge’s work by following her on social media @naturalqueenessentials. Watch for the release of an in-the-works newsletter for another way to get connected.



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