A More Excellent Way Health Improvement Organization (MEW) conducts annual community baby showers and breastfeeding peer counseling programs in aspirations to improve the birth outcomes of African-American (AA) and other women of color by providing breastfeeding support, mentoring, critical health and parenting information; also, linking them to prenatal services and other forms of support. In our
America, AA babies die at twice the rate of other babies before they reach their first birthday and are more likely to suffer from asthma and other illnesses. AA women are three times as likely to die from labor and delivery complications. Breastfeeding has been shown to significantly reduce infant illness and death. African American women’s breastfeeding rates lag far behind other races. Since the MEW AA breastfeeding project was started in 2006, the gap between AA breastfeeding rates and others has decreased as AA breastfeeding rates are increasing.
