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Black Mothers’ Birthing Center Experiences And Exclusive Breastfeeding Practices, Natashia King-Conner

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The persistence of racial disparities in breastfeeding is associated with a range of interconnected factors, such as historical, cultural, social, social, and psychological. The current gap in the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding among Black mothers and White mothers has led to rising concerns in the United States. A basic qualitative approach was used to conceptualize the multidimensional constructs of the social–ecological model to investigate the individual, interpersonal, institutional, and community-level structures and existing policies in birthing centers that inadvertently harbor biases that impede care for Black mothers. Data were gathered through purposeful sampling and semistructured interviews with 10 Black mothers …