The Black Woman's Guide to Breastfeeding

Book excerpt: This timely, up-to-date guide addresses the unique economic and social issues of black women while showing them why and how to breastfeed their children. African American infants are twice as likely to die before their first birthdays as white infants, have the highest rate of asthma of any race and have a 35 percent higher prevalence of childhood obesity than white children. African American women are 2.2 times more likely to die from breast cancer and 30 percent more likely to die from ovarian cancer than white women. All of these health crises can be remedied to some degree with breastfeeding, but virtually all breastfeeding literature on the market fails to speak to the financial, educational and cultural realities of many African American women. The Black Woman's Guide to Breastfeeding addresses the importance of breastfeeding in the African American community and provides all the practical advice African American mothers need to succeed at breastfeeding.