Mayor Stoney proclaims Black Breastfeeding Week RVA

RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) - Richmond's Mayor Levar Stoney has declared August 25-31 as Black Breastfeeding Week RVA.

Stoney says the city is another to join "the national effort to strengthen community support to address and dismantle breastfeeding barriers that disproportionately affect women of color."

It's the first time the social media campaign, celebrating breastfeeding within the African-American community, has come to RVA.

Stoney says black women have had a long and complex history connected to the topic.

"Black women have a complex history connected to breastfeeding. From being forced to neglect their own children to breastfeed slave owners' children as "wet nurses", to the lack of societal and medical support and misinformed cultural norms that do not support breastfeeding," Stoney said on Facebook.

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