Uplifting Black Voices: Jasmine Creighton on the Importance of Community Connections
By: Jasmine Creighton, CLS, Perinatal Health Specialist, Doula
This month marks the one-year weaning anniversary of my second child, and I am met with bittersweet emotions, mostly knowing my lactation journey has ended in more ways than one. Like many of my peers, my own breastfeeding journey has led me to becoming a lactation professional and wanting to support other families with their journey of human milk feeding. I always found myself providing support as a peer and slowly began to increase my knowledge and scope. Fast forward to the present, and I have multiple rewarding opportunities where I directly support and connect with various families and individuals.
As I reflect on my journey to where I am today, one common theme continues to emerge, making connections and creating my own path; both areas I am no stranger to. The lactation profession is like many career areas: hard to navigate at times, full of gatekeeping, and if you are someone going for the IBCLC credential, time and cost can be major barriers. I quickly learned while completing the necessary IBLCE requirements that belonging to a community and making connections in this work will take me much farther than being alone.
Community is essential and plays a large role in my success and the opportunities I have achieved. I am especially grateful for my community of Black lactation professionals as we advocate and work to increase the number of Black lactation professionals and the breastfeeding rates for Black families (through rewriting history, working through stigma and shame, and being a safe space). There is much work left to do but it is rewarding to do it with people whom I admire and look to as mentors (whether official or in my head).
Community plays an important role in my personal and professional development, as this work can be both healing and difficult (and sometimes the trigger or cause of trauma). Similarly to being a client seeking culturally congruent care, having a community of Black lactation peers has been a breath of fresh air and many times one of the driving forces moving me forward. Some of these same connections have also led me to some of the most amazing and rewarding opportunities as a professional that I may not have had otherwise, and I find myself along with my peers changing the landscape of human milk feeding through our creativity, innovation, and liberation of redefining standards and societal normality. The most important lesson my experience has taught me is that community change begins with community action.
Resource List:
Black Mothers’ Breastfeeding Association
ROSE (Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere)
Inland Empire Black Breastfeeding Taskforce
Author Bio
Jasmine Creighton, CLS, Perinatal Health Specialist, Doula is a wife, mother of two, and pet mom of two residing in Southern California (Inland Empire area). She is a Certified Lactation Specialist and Perinatal Health Specialist. Jasmine teaches newborn basics and breastfeeding classes for Loma Linda Children’s Hospital as well as leads the weekly Breastfeeding Support Group. Additionally, she is the advocacy liaison for the Inland Empire Breastfeeding Coalition. She is passionate for everything birth and lactation related, and strongly advocates for more education and resources to Black and minority communities. She is also a member of USLCA’s Advisory Board. To learn more about her and her work, please visit www.jasminecreighton.com or email me at mrsjasminecreighton@gmail.com.
