August is national breastfeeding month and many global and national health organizations, such as the CDC, promote breastfeeding as the healthiest form of nutrition for infants. Exclusive breastfeeding of newborns for the first six months is recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and maintaining breastfeeding beyond six months--up to two years--when other foods are introduced, is encouraged.
The AAP also notes the need for nursing mothers to be given support in the workplace as well as from healthcare workers to meet this goal. So while breastfeeding education is essential for new mothers, it is also critical that physicians and other child healthcare practitioners receive proper training to help support their nursing clients.
Books
White Blood : A History of Human Milk : How Babies Have Been Fed from Antiquity to Modern Times and Why it Matters (2021 print)
Skimmed : Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice (2020 eBook) “... skyrocketed. Over half a century later, baby formula is a seventy-billion-dollar industry and Black mothers have the lowest breastfeeding rates in the country...”
Breastfeeding : A Guide for the Medical Profession (2022 eBook)
Ethnographies of Breastfeeding : Cultural Contexts and Confrontations (2015 print) “…this important book takes a rich ethnographic survey of breastfeeding all over the world.”
Breastfeeding: New Anthropological Approaches (2017) “…unites sociocultural, biological, and archaeological anthropological scholarship to spark new conversations and research about breastfeeding.”
Your Guide to Breastfeeding for African American Women (2011 eBook)