The African American Breastfeeding Alliance of Dane County Celebrates 20 Years of Service: Fighting an Uphill Battle for Healthy Babies
Founding and/or Current members of the African American Breastfeeding Alliance of Dane County: Hershey Barnett-Bridges (l-r), Doris Franklin-Lawson, Merta Maaneb Myrick, Daphne Daniels and Tamara Thompson
Part 2 of 2
by Jonathan Gramling
It was in 2003, a little over 20 years ago that four African American healthcare professionals — Hershey Barnett-Bridges, Merta Maaneb Myrick, Doris Franklin-Lawson and Gina Currie — came together to to promote and facilitate breastfeeding by African American mothers. Breastfeeding was such a natural act and yet it seemed as if the economic, and healthcare systems as well as societal change worked against the practice of breastfeeding.
For instance, it was only in 2009 that breastfeeding in public and private places where the mother would normally be permitted was made legal, a short 15 years ago. It was something that was disdained and yet so natural.
“Our milk is specifically designed and ordered for each individual baby that we carry,” Myrick, a lactation consultant said. “The milk is specific for that baby. If you deliver a pre-term baby, your milk is pre-term milk. Cows milk has nothing to do with that. You do not go out in the field and see a bunch of cows nursing their young on humans. The milk is free and it is free-flowing. Why do we do that?”
The answer to that question may lie in a societal change over 80 years ago.
“I was told that it was due to the fact that the revolution of women working while the men were off in the army during World War II, women were now working those same jobs that men were doing,” said Hershey Barnett-Bridges, a retired public health nurse. “They actually created a way for these women to still provide nourishment for their babies while they worked. They used to mix a concentrate milk, Karo Syrup — which I wouldn’t put in anything now — and fed it to the babies.”
Two different trends came together that created a very powerful societal force that institutionalized the use of formula over breastfeeding. One was a variant of women being liberated.
“Someone will make it seem that there is this extremism to breastfeeding and vice versa; that there is extremism to say, ‘As a feminist, I’m not going to be a vending machine to this baby and I’m going to go to work and I’m going to be all of these things,’” said Tamera Thompson, a lactation consultant.
“The other thing is that we have movie stars, business owners who complain about breastfeeding,” Barnett-Bridges said. “I think it was Jennifer Lopez who said she wasn’t going to breastfeed because she didn’t want to do that.”
And as the generations came and went, formula became the preferred way of feeding babies.
“For some people, if their grandmother or great grandmother didn’t breastfeed, there can be this bias that says, ‘Your baby will turn out fine,’” Thompson said. “’Your Uncle Eddy is fine. I turned out fine’”
The other strand is that after World War II, some companies realized that there were profits to be made making and selling formula ands a whole industry grew up to convince women all over the world that formula was better than breastfeeding even though that wasn’t the case.
“Lobbyists encouraged people to use this milk,” Barnett-Bridges said. “And as they did that, we have done some studies that actually show that even though they were trying to get people to formula feed, they weren’t sure about it. They weren’t really clear on what they were doing. And that was a problem because we did have babies who had problems because they were not getting the nourishment that they really, truly needed.”
“There was a time in the late 1960s, early 1970s, Nestles really had horrific results from formula,” Myrick said. “Babies were dying by the droves because mothers weren’t understanding how to make the mix or mixing it with non-potable water. Thousands of babies died across the world.”
“It is definitely a money game,” Franklin-Lawton added. “Formula is currently tested and they try to make it similar to breast milk. But there are things about breast milk, you can’t put the antibodies that a mother has developed in their bloodstream into a bottle of formula. This just doesn’t happen. The active probiotics that are floating in your bloodstream go into breast milk. That is something that a formula company cannot duplicate. Why would people put in a highly processed item into their children when they hear in recent years that the formula has been contaminated with arsenic and other items. Here is your body that if you breastfeed and only breastfeed, you will make enough milk for your child if you do not interfere with it with certain things like certain birth-control methods.”
The formula industry for many years and up until the present would introduce formula through the hospitals.
“Many years ago, they used to give you a case of formula to walk out of the hospital with,” Barnett-Bridges said. “And some places probably still do. But the case of formula that they gave you encouraged you to use that case of formula. If you used that, you’re not going to try something different. You will continue to buy that formula. And because of that, them handing you a free case does not mean anything because they make money for that whole year off of you by giving you that one case of formula. I want you to know that the first day you buy that formula to the very last day that baby drinks is the same stuff. It does not change. Breast milk changes as you nurse the baby. It changes the composition. And so that formula, whatever they cooked in it at that time, it’s the same cooked in at the end.”
And the hospital staff were not always educated on the benefits of breastfeeding and breastfeeding techniques. This lack of support for breastfeeding would then allow formula to become the choice for young mothers.
“Why is it that all of the studies tell you breast milk is good and breast milk will do this and yet the people in the community don’t support it,” Barnett-Bridges queried. “I’m also concerned about doctors who have taken their education and haven’t been taught a thing about breastfeeding. I’ve had doctors say, ‘Well you tried it, so it didn’t work out. You can always use formula.’ And that bothers me in the sense that they didn’t teach you about the importance of breastfeeding and you keep passing that on.”
While breastfeeding is a natural process, that doesn’t mean it is always comes easy.
“Even though it is natural, there can be an interference that happens in clinical settings that makes it more difficult for that mom to breastfeed that baby,” Thompson said. “And sometimes, there can be anomalies. The baby’s mouth can be tongue tied. If it isn’t properly diagnosed and treated, then mom can be in community and asking for help and get it, but she might not have gotten it in a clinical setting. Also some people have had breast-reductions. They might have connective tissue disorders and different types of things that makes their blood flow not happen as it would for a person who doesn’t have connective tissue disorders. If they aren’t being able to get that diagnosed, they will have this unexplained lack of milk. That’s why the profession of a lactation counselor/consultant is very important because someone who is well-versed in the process of making and pumping milk and moving milk can have access to that person and educate them more and support them more on different methods that can help enhance that.”
Basically, the decision to breastfeed is done before delivery or shortly thereafter. And so advocacy for breastfeeding must come early.
“The education of breastfeeding is something that needs to be done, not when you are pregnant,” Franklin-Lawton said. “It’s before you get pregnant because you need to make a plan, not only a plan on how you are going to feed your child, but also what you are going to do for birth control and about work so that you can layout your plan. Most people just think about their birthing plan. But you need to think about your feeding and post-partum plan.”
And it was important to provide information and support before and during the birthing process.
“We would go in and provide a gift bag to moms and offered them options and what would happen if they got the Depo-Provera shot,” said Daphne Daniels, a nurse and doula. “And then what we started doing was we created a system that allowed prenatal information to be provided 6-8 weeks before delivery to make sure they knew what their options were. With that MOU, it allowed us to work with members. I would go into clinics and do that. I would go into the hospital when babies were first born to offer a breast pump or let them know the support that was available. There was a time when I joined AABA, I went through the step of certification in attending several of AABA’s trainings through the years provided by Doris and Hershey. I also was a part of the Milk Mob so that when members would contact me while at work, I would have some knowledge base to offer them and to provide for them.”
And it is important to provide the support for breastfeeding long after mother and child leave the hospital. It is important that they feel part of a community that supports breastfeeding.
“When there is a need that may not be expressed because a person may not be able to articulate it; it can be addressed when they are in spaces where you have access to intergnerational knowledge,” Thompson said about AABA’s groups. “I think that is what makes breastfeeding — even though it is natural — more enhanced because we all have access to each other. We’re all doing it with each other. We’re laughing. We’re joking. But they can also see. ‘I can see why you might be having a little bit of an issue there. Does it hurt when you lache? Let’s see what we can do.’ That’s what I think creates the value in having a lactation counselor, education support and an ongoing program because those people do fall through the cracks. And if they have difficulties, they will give up on their goals. They may have said they were going to breastfeed for one year. But they might make it through three months. And we stand to make sure they have the support to make that goal.”
It is an uphill battle sometimes to make mothers aware of the benefits of breastfeeding when there is so little institutional and social media support. But the African American Breastfeeding Alliance is there to take on that battle for the health and well-being of the community.
