Lactation Management: Strategies for Working with African-American Moms (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781939807915)

While successfully nursing her son in the late 1990's, Kathi Barber became intrigued with breastfeeding. She began to read about breastfeeding and came across the startling statistics about breastfeeding in the Black community. Kathi took training courses with La Leche League and other groups, which led her to become immersed in the breastfeeding sub-culture. This was not sufficient for her, however, because the breastfeeding sub-culture was largely white. Kathi was passionately compelled to help women in her own African-American community. In January of 2000, she established the African American Breastfeeding Alliance (AABA), the first non-profit organization whose sole mission was to support breastfeeding in the Black community, and educate Black families and their support people (i.e., doctors, LC's, WIC staff, nurses, etc.) about the importance of breastfeeding in this population. As Founder and Executive Director of AABA, Kathi has spoken nationally to hundreds of professionals, organizations, agencies and mothers on breastfeeding and African-American women. She is regularly approached by the media when a new statistic or research study is released and Black women and breastfeeding are involved. In the mid-2000's, former Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher commended her efforts at an international breastfeeding conference of over a thousand attendees. In early 2003, her work was featured in a two-page article in the Washington Post. Years of passionate effort on the behalf of the women in her community led her to write the first book on breastfeeding and Black women - The Black Woman's Guide to Breastfeeding: The Definitive Guide to Nursing for African American Mothers, published by Sourcebooks in 2005.