California Moms Live in Breastfeeding Haven

Black Maternal Health

Part: 2

California Moms Live in Breastfeeding Haven

By Molly M. Ginty

WeNews correspondent

Monday, August 16, 2010

August is National Breastfeeding Awareness Month, and in California, lactation advocates have special reason to celebrate. Still, activists in the state are pushing for better laws and working to diminish disparities.

Emily Lindsey of the California Breastfeeding Coalition (WOMENSENEWS)--Dena Melin feels blessed to be breastfeeding--especially because of the state in which she lives.

"Here in California, doctors handed me both my babies immediately after birth, so both were nursing within 20 minutes of delivery," said Melin, 40, a stay-at-home mom in Atwater. "Lactation consultants came to my home to help with my infant daughter just as they once helped with my three-year-old son. And I feel confident breastfeeding in public because I see plenty of other women doing it, too."

This month, which is National Breastfeeding Awareness Month, lactation advocates in California have special reason to celebrate, as Melin's story isn't a rarity in the state.

"In most studies on breastfeeding, California continually comes out on top," said Dr. Ruth Lawrence, chair of the section on breastfeeding for the American Academy of Pediatrics, based in Elk Grove Village, Ill.

The latest such study is a March report from the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, known as the CDC. It indicates that in California, women of all races are significantly more likely than mothers in other states to try breastfeeding and to continue until their infants' sixth month of life--a practice recommended by health authorities.

The higher rates are not by accident or a product of geography. Compared to other states, California has longer-standing and stronger laws that protect a woman's right to nurse in public and to express breast milk on the job, as well as more hospitals that have been recognized for promoting breastfeeding among patients.

Still, California activists are working to strengthen laws, to create more equitable breastfeeding outcomes across racial and socioeconomic lines and to improve hospital services even more.

Room for Improvement

"Our numbers may be better than those in other states, but there's always room for improvement," said Emily Lindsey, a spokesperson for the California Breastfeeding Coalition, based in Sacramento. The coalition serves as an umbrella organization for 43 smaller coalitions across the state.

Studies indicate exclusive breastfeeding until the six-month mark significantly reduces children's risk of asthma, allergies, diabetes, obesity and gastrointestinal and respiratory tract infections. It also protects mothers' health by slashing their risk of diabetes and ovarian and breast cancers.

California activists have been touting these benefits for decades. The state jumped on board in the late 1980s, when government agencies began offering breastfeeding support and breast pumps. One agency to make this change was Medi-Cal, California's state-run Medicaid program. Another was California's branch of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, also known as WIC. This federal initiative provides nutritional counseling and food supplements to low-income women and their children. It serves 60 percent of California's infants.

In 1996, the state's Department of Health Services issued a landmark report on breastfeeding, with new recommendations that led to further changes. In 1997, California became one of the first states to legalize breastfeeding in public, which is now allowed in 43 other states. In 2001, it required all employers to provide a private, sanitary place for mothers to pump breast milk and a "reasonable" amount of break time for them to do so. Similar legislation is now in force in 23 other states and is part of federal law as well.

Alongside these changes came what many consider to be California's crowning achievement: improved breastfeeding practices in its hospitals. Maternity ward supervisors began offering lactation training to staff members. Nurses began helping new mothers breastfeed right after birth. And hospitals began hanging blue-and-pink posters of breastfeeding mothers on their white waiting room walls.

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