NORTH CAROLINA — Black women are experiencing racial disparities while breastfeeding, and local advocates say that’s detrimental to their health and their babies.


What You Need To Know

  • Reports from the CDC show 83 percent of U.S. mothers breastfed their babies at birth

  • Black infants are 15 percent less likely to have ever been breastfed than white infants

  • Some of the stigmas stems from wet-nursing during slavery and a history of formula ads targeting Black families.

Reports from the CDC show 83 percent of U.S. mothers breastfed their babies at birth, but Black infants are 15 percent less likely to have ever been breastfed than white infants.

One mother describes her pregnancy experience different from the norm.

“I spent eight weeks having meltdowns, crying," Kenya Pridgen says. "Having my breast fill up and not knowing how to empty them."

Pridgen said she didn’t receive the support she needed from hospital staff in Guilford County to feed her son Christopher.

“She latched him on, and then was like, 'see he’s eating, so it's not that hard,' and she actually said that to me," Pridgen says.

Human Lactation Director Janiya Williams says breastfeeding should be an option for all mothers.

“It reduces SIDS, childhood obesity, type two diabetes," Williams says. "And there are benefits to the parent as well, such as the education of female cancers and diabetes, and those things are targeting primarily those in the Black communities."

As for why more Black mothers don’t breastfeed, Williams says there are many factors. She says some of the stigmas stems from wet-nursing during slavery and a history of formula ads targeting Black families. 

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