Symposium explores women's rights to breastfeed

Organizers hope to strengthen cooperation among breastfeeding advocates and those concerned with contraception, abortion, workers’ rights, mothers’ rights, adequate health insurance, women’s economic advancement and public health.

The symposium, “Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice,” is sponsored by the Center for Infant and Young Child Feeding and Care at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Center for Women’s Health and Wellness at UNC Greensboro.

“This symposium aims to reposition breastfeeding as an issue of women’s reproductive health, rights and justice,” said Paige Hall Smith, Ph.D., director of the UNCG Center for Women’s Health and Wellness. “Many scholars have conceived of breastfeeding as a practice that constrains women from achieving social and economic gains, while breastfeeding programs have not necessarily included the needs of mothers. It has been viewed as a choice rather than a rights or health issue. Breastfeeding should not result in any loss of security, rights or privileges to which women are entitled.”

Photograph of Dr. Miriam Labbock

Miriam Labbok, M.D., director of the Center for Infant and Young Child Feeding and Care, part of the UNC School of Public Health, added, “This will also be an opportunity to identify areas of synergy between the interests of those dedicated to breastfeeding and those dedicated to other aspects of women’s reproductive health, with the intent to strengthen the call for increased social and political commitment to both.”

Symposium topics will include:

• “New Breast Milk in Old Bottles: Recreating motherhood and rethinking breastfeeding.” Barbara Katz Rothman, Ph.D., professor of sociology, City University of New York;
• “The Power of Women’s Stories: Helping Women Make Decisions for Themselves and Their Babies.” Judy Norsigian, LH.D., director, Our Bodies Ourselves (the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective);
• 

  Photograph of Dr. Bert Peterson

  “Fertility and Family Planning in the Reproductive Health Continuum.” Herbert B. Peterson, M.D., chair, Department of Maternal and Child Health, UNC School of Public Health;

• “What are my options? The paradox of a choice narrative for today’s new moms.” Amy Tiemann, Ph.D., author of “Mojo Mom,” creator of MojoMom.com, director, Kidpower International;
• “Got Milk? Not in Public!” Jacqueline H. Wolf, Ph.D., associate professor, Ohio University, author of “Don’t Kill your Baby: Public Health and the Decline of Breastfeeding in the 19th and 20th Century”;
• “Diversity, Health and Breastfeeding.” Barbara Pullen-Smith, director, North Carolina Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities;
• “The Media: A friend or foe to breastfeeding?” Jane Brown, Ph.D., professor of communications, UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication, author of “Media, Social Science and Social Policy for Children.”

The registration fee is $200 for the general public and $75 for full-time students. An online registration form is available at https://www.sph.unc.edu/oce/forms/breastfeeding_reg.htm.

For more information, contact Hall Smith at (336) 334-4735 or phsmith@uncg.edu, or Labbok at (919) 966-0928 or labbok@unc.edu.

School of Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu.

News Services contact: Becky Oskin, (919) 962-8596 or becky_oskin@unc.edu.

UNC Greensboro contact: Dan Nonte (336) 334-4314 or dan_nonte@uncg.edu.