Black Breastfeeding Week is Aug. 25 – 31
Now in its fourth year, as a part of overall Breastfeeding Awareness Month, Black Breastfeeding Week kicked off yesterday and runs through Aug. 31. The week of awareness was spearheaded by three moms and has made great impact on creating a community for black mothers.
“World Breastfeeding Week is typically at the beginning of National Breastfeeding Month [which] had already existed for a few years to be the entirety of the month,” Sangodele-Ayoka told The Huffington Post. “So we said, ‘You know what, we don’t need anybody’s permission. We’re just going to take the final week and let everybody know now that’s Black Breastfeeding Week and go from there.’ And that’s how it happened.”
Keep up with the happenings following the event on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Mom shares images slamming those who call C-sections the ‘easy way out’
It is not uncommon for deliveries to be scheduled. This can be at a mom’s request for her own reasons or a doctor’s request who has reason to believe the baby, mother, or both are at risk. C-sections are sometimes planned, often because the mother previously delivered her baby this way. Believe it or not, it is not uncommon for a mother to hear an ignorant comment suggesting that going under the knife in order to deliver a baby was “easier” than traditional labor and and vaginal delivery. (That’s probably easy to believe considering the ignorant comments people can make regarding pregnancy and breastfeeding in general.)
Raye Lee took to Facebook after her emergency C-section and chose to share pictures of her surgery scar, taken only five days after the operation. Lee took a hard, life-changing experience and chose to go public with it, which spoke to so many moms who shared similar experiences.
“Having a shrieking infant pulled out of an incision that is only 5 inches long, but is cut and shredded and pulled until it rips apart through all of your layers of fat, muscle, and organs (which they lay on the table next to your body, in order to continue to cut until they reach your child) is a completely different experience than I had imagined my sons birth to be,” Lee wrote in her post. “This was not pleasant. It still isn’t.”
21 comics capturing the real wins and fails of breastfeeding
While some cartoons on this Huffington Post list are oldies, they are still goodies. The compilation of 21 comics on breastfeeding was featured as a part of the site’s tribute to Breastfeeding Awareness Month. Here are a few favorites.
[Research] Breastfeeding numbers rise, but most do not continue 6 months
While the statiscis on breastfeeding are positive in terms of the number of mothers who breastfeed their babe at all, a large number do not the recommended six month time period recommended by The American Academy of Pediatrics. A 2013 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed 81.1% of U.S. moms breastfeed initially, but only 52% of mothers were still breastfeeding after six months.
“We are pleased by the large number of mothers who start out breastfeeding their infants,” said Ruth Petersen, director of CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity. “Mothers can better achieve their breast-feeding goals with active support from their families, friends, communities, clinicians, health care leaders, employers, and policymakers.” [Read more here.]
Viral videos on the topic of breastfeeding in public
Two videos spread rapidly across the web last week, both shedding light on normalizing breastfeeding. One, by Grizzlements, was created by two men on the commonly disputed topic of public breastfeeding. Their one-minute parody clip shows the ridiculousness of the situation when a group of women complain about a man eating alone in a restaurant, who is then forced to eat his solo meal in a bathroom.
Additionally, mother and British poet Hollie McNish put together a powerful spoken-word video, “Embarrassed,” lamenting what it is to be a mother who fears feeding in public.
Remember that time when Rugrats Normalized Breastfeeding?
Huffington Post recently highlighted a clip from the 90’s cartoon, Rugrats, in which breastfeeding was shared as the norm. The episode aired in May 1997, the show’s Mother’s Day episode.
