If you work in the perinatal space — whether you're a doula, midwife, lactation consultant, nurse, educator, or advocate — you’ve likely heard the statistics.

You’ve heard that in the U.S., only about 74.5% of Black birthing parents begin breastfeeding, compared to the 84% initiation rate overall (CDC). That Black parents are less likely to receive breastfeeding support in hospitals. And by six months, the gap becomes even more pronounced — just 28% of Black infants are still being breastfed, compared with significantly higher rates for white infants (U.S. Breastfeeding Committee). That formula use is more common — and more stigmatized. You’ve heard about the disparities.

But what’s often missing is the “why”.

And not just the surface-level why. Not just "less access to lactation consultants" or "not enough Black providers" (though both are true). We mean the deeper “why” — the “why” that lives in the soil of this country. The “why” that stretches back to before there were hospitals, before there was WIC, before there were public health campaigns. The “why” that begins with exploitation, with forced labor, with people who knew how — and had rich, effective traditions from across the African diaspora revolving around how to feed and care for their children before that care was violently interrupted.

The truth is, if we want to address the modern inequities around infant feeding in Black communities, we can’t just start in the 1970s with formula. Or in the 1990s with WIC reform. Or even in the 2010s with the rise of Black Breastfeeding Week. We have to understand the roots, the actions, the culture, the hierarchies — everything that contributed to the deeply ingrained systems that fractured the ability to feed in the first place — and that have simply evolved over time to show up in new forms.

Because the disparities we see today? They’re not the result of the failure of individual willpower, or communal, cultural stigmas. They are truly the result of generations of systemic interference in how Black people in the US have given birth, and how they have been supported (or not — or, quite frankly, sabotaged) in their capacity to care for and to feed their children.

Understanding this matters because it helps us act differently.

It changes how we interpret someone’s hesitation to breastfeed. It changes how we approach education, messaging, and support. It changes whether we’re entering a room with blind assumptions — or with grounded context. It changes how we talk about "choice" in a world where options are still shaped by structural obstacles.

For example, when a parent says “I don’t want to breastfeed,” are we hearing that as disinterest? Or do we know that there are generations of reasons why someone might feel afraid, ambivalent, or simply unsupported? Do we recognize that "choice" has often been a response to survival — not necessarily an authentic preference?

When we frame breastfeeding solely as a matter of personal willpower, we place the weight of systems on individual backs. But when we understand the roots — when we know the history of forced wet nursing (a phrase that cannot even fully convey the reality of that system of reproductive violence, trauma, and commodification of the Black body), of separation, of labor exploitation, of formula being pushed by the industry as “modern” and “clean” and “higher-class” while breastfeeding was shamed and ignored — we begin to see today’s landscape more clearly. Not just as a set of statistics to fix, but as a multi-faceted system to transform.

And that transformation starts with culturally grounded, historically informed care.

It means not shaming someone for using formula — and also not assuming they wouldn’t want to breastfeed if supported.

It means understanding that feeding is not just a task — it’s a site of trauma, resistance, and reclamation.

It means widening our language — honoring terms like chestfeeding and bodyfeeding alongside breastfeeding — and experiences like SNS feeding, pumping, donor milk, syringe feeding, combo feeding, and more. Being curious and understanding that there are countless reasons why a parent might feed their baby the way they do. Adapting our language — and our systems — to be wide enough to hold them all.

It means holding space for grief, for pride, for anger, for tradition — for a wide range of emotional and physiological responses to how parents feed their infants, rooted in and far beyond the body, itself.

It means that when we talk about healing — we know what the wound was.

In honor of Black Breastfeeding Week, we’re releasing a powerful new addition to our Reproductive Health + Equity Resource Guide — an in-depth section on the history of breastfeeding and infant feeding in Black communities in the US.

Here’s an outline of the new addition:

🤱🏾 Ancestral wisdom + tradition from across the African diaspora
🤱🏽 From forced wet nursing to the formula industry and medical mistrust
🤱🏿 Cultural erasure, survival strategies, and systemic harm
🤱🏽 Today’s feeding landscape, inclusive language, and community reclamation

The more we understand what was interrupted, the more power we have to support what’s being reclaimed.