Reducing Breastfeeding Disparities Through Outreach, Education, & Engagement

Breastfeeding in the Community: Sharing Stories on Implementations That Work

This overview of the Breastfeeding Project highlights the work of 19 Breastfeeding Project grantees. The goal of sharing these stories is to increase awareness of the processes, successes, and challenges of implementing and expanding access to lactation support services for families and communities that have been historically marginalized and underserved. Click to Read.

Goal

The main goal of the Breastfeeding Project was to increase access and availability of breastfeeding support programs to African American and low-income women by providing direct services.

Challenges

Approximately 60% of the grantees reported that the most common barrier was the recruitment and retention of women to their specific program.

Successes

Much of the success for many of the programs can be attributed to the marketing campaigns promoting services in the community. Social media and text messaging played a significant role in many of the projects’ marketing efforts.

Lessons Learned

1. Providers must understand community challenges to accessing services and be flexible to modify program activities to meet families’ needs.
2. Continuous outreach to mothers through multiple channels, such as reminder phone calls, emails, and text messages, is necessary to keep families engaged in the program.
3. Grantees learned the importance of including family members, partners, and siblings in breastfeeding support services, especially in African American and Hispanic communities.