Abstract
Mr. Kellogg, when he created the Foundation, said, “Do what you will with the money so long as it helps children.” When Sterling Speirn came to the Foundation roughly 7 years ago now, he wanted to revisit the vision of the founder, and we honed in on the issue of vulnerable children. And how did we define vulnerability? We certainly focused on poverty, but also on many other indicators that would make it difficult for a child to realize her or his full potential.
And so our mission statement talks about creating the conditions that will propel vulnerable children to success, and the operative word there for me is “propel.” In other words, how do you overcome the multiple barriers within a community that would not only serve as risk factors, but they really serve as impediments to the realization of their full potential? In spite of persistent residential segregation, persistent poverty, persistent double-digit unemployment, persistent and increasing violence, how do you propel our children to success in spite of all those circumstances? You optimize birth outcomes.
And a critical factor in that, I believe, is making sure that child has access to mother's milk exclusively for the first 6 months of life. And the data are there to support that. When we started this work 4 years ago, our first summit focused on the data. And then we started focusing on how do you change hospital practices? And I love one of the comments from last year's speaker who said, “That is not debatable anymore. When you change hospital practices and they embrace the 10 Steps, you dramatically increase the rates of exclusive breastfeeding.”
What is debatable at this point, I believe, for us, as a community, is how do we change the consumer attitudes? How do we ultimately change the behaviors of mothers and fathers? If there is a voice that is missing from this discussion at this point, it is the voice of the fathers, because they do influence the decisions of the mothers. We really do have to do a little more to bring the male voice into this conversation, for balance and for effectiveness.
But how do you change the attitudes, the perceptions, and the behaviors of the mom, of the consumer, of the community? I am so excited as I look at the program design this year. I see there is much more of the community voice, and that is good. And there is much more focus on the broader social determinants, which ultimately influence and determine behaviors. And that is good.
I was reading a quote by Buckminster Fuller that I think is very appropriate, and he said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change things, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” So my message to you today is, what is our new model for a culture that embraces the critical, vital primacy of breastfeeding? What does that new model look like? What does a community look like that holds that up as the standard? What does the workforce look like that holds that up as the standard? What does the practice of obstetrics and gynecology look like if it holds this up as the standard? What does an insurance industry look like that holds this as the standard? What does a church look like that makes this the standard? What does a grocery store look like that makes this the standard? So if we ask ourselves what is the new model that makes the existing model obsolete, it might guide us toward envisioning the world we are trying to create.
Next year will be our fifth year of the summit. We are already thinking about how to expand the audience significantly. While we want to expand the audience significantly, one of the hallmarks of the efforts so far over these 4 years has been when you brainstorm at the end of the summit and you come up with priority actions. And I have done a little tracking—not officially, that is also one of our challenges—but I have seen movement on those agreed-to actions by this summit. Some of the huge policy victories that have been achieved are evidenced in the recommended actions. Some of the new focus on the environmental toxicity factors and the barriers for all women, particularly women of color, they were part of the recommendations.
And so I would ask you this year when you come to the end of the summit and you come up with recommendations, please let your recommendations be guided by the idea of what does the new model look like that makes the existing model obsolete?
I tell people all the time, there are some advantages to growing older, and none of them is physical. But, one of the advantages is living long enough to see change happen. It renews our faith and our understanding that progress can be made, is being made, and will be made by people who are determined to see that change come about. We have made tremendous progress—some of it is opportunistic—in that we have an administration in office that gets this and cares and is willing to exert the power that it has. The victories in the healthcare reform legislation were huge for this work.
I would encourage you to recognize that consumer attitudes affect the Supreme Court decisions, and so we have a particular window of opportunity here to make our voices heard, to amplify our voices through the blogosphere. The Supreme Court is going to make a decision that will affect our lives. This piece of legislation warrants our efforts to influence to the degree that we can, to be the echo chamber for why this legislation is so critically important to the future of our country.
So use your bully pulpits. Be that echo chamber. Influence the public discourse from your particular perch and point of view about the changes that have been made on behalf of mothers and children on this issue.
This is a critical time in our nation's history. We have to summon the energy to accelerate the progress. I personally cannot think of one thing that does more to propel vulnerable children to success than the opportunity to experience exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months. I was in clinical practice many, many years ago. I had thousands of patients. I got a chance to see firsthand the difference that it made on the South Side of Chicago when children had that opportunity. I got a chance to realize it in my own life with my own children.
And so, in the midst of all the science, those personal experiences and those personal stories will carry tremendous weight in changing behaviors. We are going to do much more this year with funding social media, but I also want to remind you of the critical role of the personal story and the personal relationship. The story of the OB/GYNs, the story of the pediatricians, the story of the nurses, and the stories of the mothers and the fathers when a difference is made, when there are fewer ear infections, when there is reduced asthma and reduced hospitalizations, when there is the protection against the myriad diseases that are disproportionately experienced by women of color from this opportunity to breastfeed exclusively. So we have got to do more to capture the stories and tell the stories.
But now is a critical time. Do not lose heart. Do not get comfortable with the progress we have made. We are probably right at the edge of reaching the tipping point, the critical mass, after which a sea change occurs. But we are not there yet, so our efforts are more needed today than they ever were before. And as the President of our Foundation would say, the future of America is born every day. And so this work is critical to that future, and I applaud you, and I ask you to make sure that you represent at least 100 other people in your community who are standing up for our nation's children by assuring that they have the right to mother's milk exclusively for the first 6 months of life.
Footnotes
Disclosure Statement
No competing financial interests exist.