Mississippi has lowest breastfeeding rate. Here’s a list of free Baby Cafes on the Coast.

Sometimes the faces are familiar, and Rebecca Yates, a lactation specialist can recognize the moms who come to Merit Health Biloxi’s Baby Cafe on Thursdays for a quiet place to breastfeed.

More often than not, though, they are new moms looking for support.

“One mom came in with latch issues,” Yates said. “Having the consultant there helped her reposition the baby so there’s not any pain.”

Pain is one of the primary reasons why new moms will stop breastfeeding. Incorrect latching can lead to sore, cracked and tender breasts. But having a support group of fellow moms and specialists to aid during the breastfeeding process can make a big difference, Yates said.

Opened this past fall, the Baby Cafe is open from 9:30-11:30 a.m. and free to register online. It also has a kid center for moms with more than one child. Significant others are welcome. A second Baby Cafe is at Singing River Hospital and hosts weekly group meetings with a lactation specialist.

The Baby Cafes are the result of the Sharing Health Education and Awareness campaign launched in September. The community-centered approach aims to reduce health disparities and rates of chronic disease among African American women, babies and families in Jackson, Hancock, and Harrison counties.

The campaign is part of the Gulf Coast Healthy Families, Mothers and Baby Initiative led by the Mississippi Public Health Institute, a nonprofit organization.

Mississippi has the lowest breastfeeding rate in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Breastfeeding Report Card. Additional studies show that African American women have the lowest rates of breastfeeding initiation and duration.

Benefits to breastfeeding include improved immune systems for the baby and a lower risk of breast cancer for moms.

“We found that oftentimes African American women don’t see or value breastfeeding because they don’t see themselves in imagery,” program manager Tennille Collins said. “They understand the importance but they see it for other populations and not for themselves. There’s a lot of culture-related reasons why women don’t breastfeed.”

Barriers to breastfeeding for African American women include an earlier return to work, inadequate breastfeeding information from healthcare providers and a lack of access to professional support, a CDC study found.

The Baby Cafe is part of a grassroots effort to eliminate those barriers.

In addition to promoting the benefits of breastfeeding, The Sharing Health Education and Awareness initiative focuses on tobacco cessation and active living — advocating for programs like Baby and Me Tobacco Free at the Coastal Family Health Center.

“We are promoting those three areas and increasing awareness and education to connect women to community resources,” Collins said.

This story was originally published February 26, 2020 at 12:00 AM.