Lactivism has begun to seem like an endless parade of lies:
Breastfeeding saves lives of term babies — a lie!
Breastfeeding within the first hour of birth saves lives — a lie!
Insufficient breastmilk is rare — a lie!
Every baby needs nothing more than colostrum for several days — a lie!
But in my view, there’s no lie more cruel or more ugly than the one peddled by Kimberly Seals Allers on the Huffington Post — Presenting Breastfeeding As A Choice Is Contributing To Black Infant Deaths — the lie that black women are responsible for their deaths of their own children.
Breastfeeding would do NOTHING to prevent most of the deadly risks that black infants face.
Seals Allers writes:
Studies show that even college-educated black women disproportionately give birth to babies who die during infancy from complications related to birth size and weight. Nationally, black babies die at more than twice the rate of white babies. And some areas of the country have it worse than others; in prosperous San Francisco, black infants die at a rate of 9.6 percent compared to a rate of 2.1 percent for white infants.
It’s true. Black women are more likely to end pregnancy with heartache and empty arms than any other ethnic group. Whose fault is that? Seals Allers choose to blame the victims:
For more than 40 years, stark racial disparities have existed between white and black breastfeeding rates, particularly when you look at women who exclusively breastfeed for six months and who exclusively breastfeed for 12 months (the gold standard of infant nutrition as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics). According to recent CDC data, only 17 percent of black infants were still breastfeeding at 12 months, whereas nearly double the rate of white infants met that standard.
If it weren’t ugly enough to blame black mothers for their own losses, the reasoning is uglier still. Seals Allers appears to believe that black women are uniquely ignorant and gullible.
National discourse often frames breastfeeding as a lifestyle choice instead of a public health matter ― more akin to choosing a cloth diaper as opposed to the preventative medicine it provides…
How dare anyone treat women like adults and let them choose how they wish to use their own bodies? How dare anyone imagine that black women are as capable of making responsible choices as white women?
Don’t get me wrong: Kimberly Seals Allers is neither anti-feminist or racist.
She — like nearly everyone who seeks to restrict women’s autonomy — believes she is on the side of the angels. She — like those who seek to restrict reproductive freedom — believes that “choice” is anathema because there is only one right choice. She — like those who propose arduous hurdles for termination of pregnancy or who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control because it offends their religious values — are convinced there is no limit to the rights that can be trampled because the ends justify the means.
That doesn’t change the fact that blaming black women for killing their own babies by not breastfeeding is both anti-feminist and racist — and factually false.
Why do black babies die? According to the Office of Minority Health:
The leading cause of black infant death are prematurity, congenital anomalies, maternal complications of pregnancy and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
How would breastfeeding reduce black infant death? It’s easier to list what it WOULDN’T do than what it would.
Breastfeeding would NOT reduce the incidence of prematurity.
Breastfeeding has NO impact on congenital anomalies.
Breastfeeding has NO impact on maternal complications of pregnancy
So breastfeeding would do NOTHING to prevent most of the deadly risks that black infants face.
How could breastfeeding reduce black infant mortality? Breastfeeding reduces the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a deadly complication of extreme prematurity, and breastfeeding is associated with a reduction in the risk of SIDS.
But there are important caveats to these benefits:
1. Deaths from NEC represent only a small fraction of deaths from prematurity. Most premature babies die from respiratory complications and brain hemorrhages. There’s no evidence that breastfeeding has any impact on those causes.
2. Breastfeeding does not prevent NEC; it merely reduces the incidence.
3. The leading risk factor for SIDS deaths is bed sharing, not failure to breastfeed. Moreover, reduction of SIDS deaths that could be accomplished by increasing breastfeeding rates could equally be accomplished by promoting pacifier use.
What could save the lives of MORE black babies than breastfeeding?
Reducing prematurity.
Reducing maternal complications of pregnancy.
Promoting early prenatal care.
Making sure black women and their babies have access to high risk care.
Reducing bed sharing.
The bottom line is that breastfeeding could potentially prevent only a small fraction of black infant deaths. Even if all black women breastfed, their babies would still continue to die at a much higher rate than white babies.
That makes Seals Allers implication that black mothers who formula feed are responsible for their own bereavement about as ugly an insinuation as one could make.
