Breastfeeding belongs in our modern understanding of what public health is.
This Guest Post by Dr. Karleen Gribble is the first in a series that will focus on Infant and Young Child Feeding in Emergencies. Supporting breastfeeding and ensuring that infants who are not breastfed are protected from the catastrophic risks of formula feeding in emergencies are major global health concerns. Formula feeding is extremely hazardous in emergencies without the resources to protect infants from contaminated water, bottles, and formula powder. Misunderstandings about infant feeding in emergencies increase the likelihood that formula will be given out in ways that are detrimental to breastfeeding. When breastfeeding ends and formula feeding begins, in emergencies, infant mortality rises dramatically. In this guest post, Dr. Gribble describes why mothers who are breastfeeding may request formula.
Earlier this year I had the opportunity to speak at the Breastfeeding and Feminism International Conference in Chapel Hill, NC. The conference is devoted to highlighting breastfeeding-related research, practice, advocacy, and policy. The meeting theme for 2015 was “Breastfeeding, Social Justice, and Equity: Reflecting, Reclaiming, and Re-visioning,” in celebration of the meeting’s tenth anniversary. I presented my research on maternal-child health disparities in Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations in Hawai’i. What follows are some highlights from this presentation.
Providing mothers with a supportive workplace, safe and sanitary places to pump, and time to practice this small, but significant, act of caregiving while they are at work, just doesn’t seem like too much to ask.
Dr. King’s legacy continues to shape the fight for health equity within African American communities. What better day than today to reflect on birth justice and breastfeeding?
My brilliant colleague, Kirstie Doehler, and I analyzed a handful of the survey items and then wrote a paper. It was published online in October 2014 in the journal Social Science & Medicine, and is the first to describe who is milk sharing in the U.S.