Skimmed: Breastfeeding, Race, and Injustice

302 Pages·2020·3.797 MB·English

by  Andrea Freeman

SKIMMED
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S K I M M E D
BREASTFEEDING, RACE,
AND INJUSTICE
ANDREA FREEMAN
STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Stanford, California
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STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Stanford, California
© 2020 by Andrea Freeman. All rights reserved.
Some of the research featured in this book was previously published in the Fordham Law
Review and Hastings Law Journal.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University
Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-5036-0112-3 (cloth)
ISBN 978-1-5036-1081-1 (electronic)
Cover design: Rob Ehle
Cover photo: The quadruplet daughters of Annie Mae and James “Pete” Fultz sit up for a
birthday picture in the nursery of their home near Madison, N.C., May 19, 1947. Seated
in the order in which they were born, the girls are, left to right, Mary Ann, Mary Louise,
Mary Alice, and Mary Catherine. They will be a year old on May 23. (AP Photo)
Text design: Kevin Barrett Kane
Typeset by Motto Publishing Services in 10/14 ITC Galliard Std
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To Alia and Serafi no,
who are everything
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CONTENTS
Prologue ix
Introduction: A Formula for Discrimination 1
1 The Famous Fultz Quads 15
2 Black Breastfeeding in America 35
3 Race-Targeted Formula Marketing 59
4 The Bad Black Mother 87
5 When Formula Rules 113
6 Legalizing Breast Milk 139
7 The Fultz Quads after Pet Milk 163
Conclusion: “First Food” Freedom 173
Acknowledgments 179
Notes 183
Index 265
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PROLOGUE
I never expected to fall in love with Pet Milk’s poster children, “the fa-
mous Fultz Quads,” or to feel such a deep affi nity with their mother, An-
nie Mae Fultz. At fi rst glance, Annie Mae and I appear to have little in
common. Born Annie Mae Troxler on May 14, 1909, in Rockingham
County, North Carolina, Annie Mae faced obstacles growing up Black
and Cherokee in the rural South that I can only imagine. When meningi-
tis robbed her of the ability to hear and speak as a child, she had to learn
how to navigate a frequently hostile world without words. Despite these
challenges, she met and married James “Pete” Fultz and gave birth to six
healthy children before she became pregnant in 1945 with, according to
her doctor, triplets.
In 2008, I learned that I was pregnant with triplets. I reacted with a
mixture of joy and fear. Until that moment, I had fi rmly believed that my
body was incapable of carrying children. With little to lose, I had taken
advantage of my insurance policy’s coverage of one treatment of in vitro
fertilization. If my doctors had known that I would suffer the worst side
effect of this process, ovarian hyperstimulation, they never would have let
me try it. But, as luck had it, by the time they fi gured it out, the proce-
dure had already worked. After my fi rst ultrasound, only a few days into
the pregnancy, I went straight home from the doctor’s offi ce to start in-
defi nite bed rest.
When my next ultrasound detected three tiny heartbeats, my doctor
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