Kimberly Seals Allers is an award-winning journalist, author, and a nationally recognized media commentator, consultant, and advocate for breastfeeding and infant health. A former senior editor at ESSENCE and writer at FORTUNE magazine, Kimberly is widely considered a leading voice in the counterculture movement in infant feeding. Last year, her online commentaries on the social, structural, and racial complexities of maternal and child health issues received over 10 million page views. Kimberly’s fifth book, The Big Let Down—How Medicine, Big Business and Feminism Undermine Breastfeeding was published by St. Martin’s Press in January 2017.
As a consultant, Kimberly provides strategic communication services to hospitals, non-profits and other public health-related organizations, with an expertise in engaging communities of color. For over seven years, she has led innovative community-based projects in New Orleans, Birmingham, Detroit, and Philadelphia that explore the impact of “first food deserts”—communities that severely lack accessible resources to support mothers who choose to breastfeed—and developing community-partnered strategies to transform these areas into more breastfeeding supportive environments. She is currently the project director for The First Food Friendly Community Initiative (3FCI), a W.K. Kellogg-funded pilot project in Detroit and Philadelphia to create a national accreditation process for breastfeeding-friendly communities. Kimberly also serves vice president of the Board of Governors for the Commission for the Accreditation of Birth Centers (CABC).
Sessions
No Mother Left Behind: Creating the Communication and Culture to Reduce Breastfeeding Disparities Among African American Women