Expanding Medicaid to cover lactation services could help fight reproductive injustice in Southern states.
but structural barriers to breastfeeding. Those barriers are particularly high in the Black community and in Southern states, where breastfeeding rates are lower.
“Breastfeeding is a reproductive choice issue,” said Kimarie Bugg, the founder and CEO of Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere a national organization based in Georgia that aims to decrease racial disparities in breastfeeding. “We know there are long-term health benefits to a mother, a child, a family, and society if a woman is successful breastfeeding.”
Black people have the lowest rates of breastfeeding initiation among all racial groups in the U.S., according to a 2015. People who breastfeed less are usually young, low-income, Black, unmarried, and beneficiaries of the Supplemental Nutritional Program for Women, Infants, and Children .
There’s also a geographic disparity, as Southern states overall have a lower rate of breastfeeding than the nation as a whole. According to the CDC’s latest