August 26th 2025.
A Traumatic Legacy
For more than ten years, Black Breastfeeding Week has been a powerful symbol of the strength and unwavering determination of Black mothers. It is a time to come together and celebrate the future while also advocating for a healthier community. However, this annual observance also serves as a poignant reminder of a dark and painful history. The cruel practice of forcing enslaved Black women to act as wet nurses for white children was not only widespread, but a deliberate act of control that stripped these women of their autonomy and commodified their bodies.
This exploitation inflicted a legacy of trauma that continues to affect Black women's relationships with breastfeeding today. The emotional pain from slavery still echoes, shaping complex and often painful connections with breastfeeding in the Black community.
Enforced Wet Nursing and Familial Disruption
The forced use of enslaved Black women as wet nurses was a heart-wrenching practice that stripped them of their fundamental maternal rights. Enslavers viewed an enslaved woman's breast milk as a valuable asset to be bought, sold, or rented, with records of these transactions appearing in newspapers across the Americas and Brazil.
To ensure a constant, available milk supply for their own children, enslavers would forcibly separate enslaved mothers from their own infants, sometimes permanently. This cruel act denied Black children the immunological and nutritional benefits of their mother's milk, often leading to a reliance on inadequate substitutes such as dirty water or cow's milk. This, in turn, contributed to devastatingly high infant mortality rates. The emotional and psychological toll on these mothers, who endured the grief of separation while being forced to nurture another's child, was immense and long-lasting.
The Purpose of Enforced Wet Nursing
The motivations behind this practice were multifaceted and insidious. For affluent white women, hiring a wet nurse was a status symbol that freed them from the perceived "burden" of breastfeeding. However, for enslavers, the practice served as a tool of manipulation and control, allowing them to dictate the reproductive lives of enslaved women whose bodies were seen as tools for labor and profit. Enslavers would often time the pregnancies of enslaved women to align with their wives' due dates, ensuring a lactating woman was always available. Some accounts even suggest that some enslaved mothers were beaten to ensure compliance, a horrific form of coercion that contributed to the racist stereotype of Black mothers as unloving or harsh. This narrative was used to justify the inhumanity of the enslavers.
The Lasting Legacy of Breastfeeding
The trauma of enforced wet nursing created a historical wound that has never fully healed. This history contributes to a cultural memory where breastfeeding is painfully associated with exploitation and a lack of autonomy. For some, avoiding breastfeeding became a way to reclaim agency and distance themselves from this painful past. This sentiment has been passed down through generations, with some older Black women discouraging younger women from breastfeeding, believing it to be a practice tied to a period of servitude. The introduction of infant formula further compounded this intergenerational trauma, as companies aggressively targeted Black communities with marketing campaigns that framed formula as a modern, sophisticated alternative to a painful history.
Today, these historical factors, combined with enduring systemic barriers, contribute to significant disparities. The high labor participation rate of Black women, which is higher than any other group, means they are often the primary economic support for their families. This financial pressure forces many to return to work sooner, often to jobs that lack paid family leave or adequate lactation accommodations. Despite legal mandates, employers frequently fail to comply, leaving Black workers vulnerable to demotion, harassment, or job loss for simply trying to exercise their right to breastfeed. Furthermore, inequities in healthcare and a lack of culturally competent support from medical institutions compound the problem. Therefore, the relatively low breastfeeding rate for Black mothers is not solely a matter of personal choice, but a direct result of systemic racism that continues to impact their health and well-being.
The fight for Black maternal and infant health requires more than just promoting breastfeeding. It demands a comprehensive effort to acknowledge and dismantle the centuries of historical trauma and systemic inequities that have made this natural act a struggle. The lasting effects of forced wet nursing are a painful reminder that for Black women, the fight to nourish their children is not just a personal choice - it is a struggle against a system that has long denied them the very foundation of wellness. The only way forward is to prioritize policies that remove barriers to health and well-being for all.
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