More than 190 lactation specialists and maternity health practitioners from across the United States came to N.C. A&T this month to celebrate the work being done around breastfeeding locally and nationally, and help people gain the tools to be successful in supporting communities with their infant feeding goals, at the nation’s first HBCU-held breastfeeding conference.
The first annual Uplifting Black and Brown Lactation Success Conference, co-hosted by N.C. A&T’s Pathway 2 Human Lactation Training Program – housed in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences - and national non-profit organization Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere (ROSE), also addressed challenges around breastfeeding support in communities of color and barriers to entering the lactation workforce.
The event was held Aug. 8-9 at N.C. A&T’s University Farm Pavilion.
“Since COVID, we’ve not been able to share a space in-person as far as Black and brown lactation professionals,” said Janiya Mitnaul Williams, the lactation program director. “We’re hoping that this conference will serve as a resurgence of us being able to share space annually.”
The conference was preceded by a reception and white coat ceremony for the nine students entering the lactation program’s fifth cohort this fall. The ceremony marks students’ entrance into a clinical profession. Several of the conference’s organizers, including Emma Makin Burress, who is now clinical coordinator for A&T’s lactation program, and Cierra Murphy-Higgs, a conference planning committee member who will join A&T’s lactation program this fall as the didactic coordinator are graduates of the program’s first class in 2021.
“I’m hoping this program will help me to be aware of cultural issues facing mothers and those who chestfeed, and educate me about those cultures, so that I am sensitive when I’m going in to serve and assist families and patients,” said fifth cohort student Mariana Romero. “Everyone is unique and different, and each family has different things that work for them, so being aware of that is very important in healthcare.”
According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control published in 2021, fewer non-Hispanic Black infants (75.4%) are breastfed, compared to Asian infants (92.7%), non-Hispanic White infants (86.2%) and Hispanic infants (83.4%).
“During my time in the hospital as a lactation consultant, I realized that patients who looked like me felt more comfortable talking to me,” said Williams, who began A&T’s lactation program in 2020. “We wanted to develop a program that would help to diversify the lactation workforce, making cultural congruent care something that was more attainable in the United States.”
Jennifer Day, executive director of the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee, presents during the Uplifting Black and Brown Lactation Success Conference at the N.C. A&T University Farm Pavilion. An estimated 180 lactation professionals, maternal health practitioners and others involved in the breastfeeding and birth works communities across North Carolina and the United States were in attendance.
The first conference day, opened by Williams, focused on building a global workforce in Black and brown lactation consultants, featuring a keynote speech by Clifton Kenan Jr., director at large of the Human Milk Banking Association of North America; a discussion on equity in breastfeeding by Jennifer Day, executive director of the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee; and a panel session on navigating culturally centered maternity care.
The second centered on inclusive spaces for Black and brown families and self-care opportunities for patients and consultants.
“We’ve seen tremendous work that’s being done throughout the country by Black, Indigenous, Latin X and other community lactation support providers,” said ROSE president Kimarie Bugg, DNP. “It gives us hope, after being all over the country in silos by ourselves, that good work is being done across the U.S. You kind of get lost a lot of times because there are so many inequities and disparities in our communities. To be able to see that there’s a lot of joy really helps to invigorate us and allow us to keep doing what we’re doing.”
ROSE's partnership with N.C. A&T’s lactation program will continue “in any capacity that they need us,” Bugg said, including student support, mentors and additional lactation partners.
