'Biggest baby boom.' Mashpee tribe wants to reduce baby formula use, strengthen community

Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal member Rachael Lovely was at home — and in labor with her second child in 2022. She decided to build a prayer fire, which would remain lit throughout her entire labor. Lovely felt certain the ancestors would hear her prayers and help her through childbirth.

"I went out and prayed at the fire and offered tobacco," said Lovely. "That was my way of incorporating ceremony and tradition into the birth of my child."

Between 2023 and 2024, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe has welcomed about 100 babies into its Nation, according to Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal member Alexandra Lopes-Pocknett .

"It's probably the biggest baby boom we've had in a century," said Lopes-Pocknett.

With so many babies being born into the fold, and limited traditional tribal knowledge surrounding childbirth and lactation ceremony, Lovely and Lopes-Pocknett, along with Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal member Keturah Peters, are offering an Indigenous Lactation Counselor Training, which will run from Sept. 23-27. Classes will be held at the Wampanoag Language Reclamation Project in Mashpee.

Lactation training can help break the overuse of baby feeding formula, and help strengthen the tribal community, Lovely said.

Lovely: Invaluable to growing families

The knowledge the training will bring to Wampanoag people, and tribal people from other communities, is invaluable to growing families, said Lovely.

"When a family is able to support and nourish their babies by breastfeeding, they are able to independently provide those babies with the most adequate nutrition, the strongest medicine, and the safest sustenance," said Lovely.

The training is being offered to Indigenous people from the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, but also men and women from other tribal communities. Applications must be submitted by Aug. 8, according to the event's flyer. Lovely and Lopes-Pocknett are also fundraising to ensure that all meals can be provided to participants.

The training, funded by a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , will be led by the founding executive director of Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services, Camie Goldhammer , and Kimberly Moore-Salas, a lactation consultant at Maricopa Integrated Health System.

"The training will offer attendees an opportunity to bond with other Native women and their entire families," said Lopes-Pocknett. "These are just the beginning steps we are taking to ensure health and longevity when it comes to reproductive rights for Indigenous people in our homelands."

What will people learn during the training?

Goldhammer, who is Sisseton Wahpeton , and Moore-Salas , who is Diné, created the first and only lactation counselor training created by Native people for Native communities. The duo have trained roughly 550 Indigenous lactation counselors across the continent, according to the Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services website.

Mashpee is one of three Indigenous communities that will receive the training during the CDC grant cycle. There are about 20 slots available, said Lovely.

The training will cover how to breastfeed, alternative feeding methods, father and family support, historical trauma and parenting practices, and how food sovereignty is connected to breastfeeding and lactation.

"We will be unpacking our own personal histories and community histories to see how that relates to our views on feeding our children," Lovely said. "There is potential trauma that comes through us genetically — just by being born Indigenous."

On the fifth day of the class, Lovely said attendees will be certified in lactation and breastfeeding practices. The hope, she said, is that these women will then use the skills and knowledge they've gained in their tribal communities.

"It will then be our collective responsibility to help community members and share these teachings," she said.

What is food sovereignty?

Food sovereignty is a particularly important aspect of the training, Lovely said. For generations, baby feeding formula has been normalized and pushed on new mothers by doctors and family members, she said.

"If you can feed a baby with just your body and you are not depending on formula, and you have your community standing behind you, that's being sovereign," said Lovely.

Formula has also faced shortages in recent years, said Lopes-Pocknett, and has also become extremely expensive. In 2022, hundreds of tribal women in the local community relied on donated breast milk because baby formula couldn't be found.

"The knowledge people will learn in the training brings us back to a more historic way of nourishing our children," said Lopes-Pocknett.

Community support was overwhelming

When the training was announced by Goldhammer and Moore-Salas, hundreds of tribal communities applied to have the training taught in their territory, said Lovely. Competition was fierce, she said.

In addition to the application, Lopes-Pocknett, Lovely, and Peters also submitted a letter that served as collective testimony about why local tribal communities wanted the training to be held in Mashpee. The group collected about 76 signatures.

"The community recognized the value that breastfeeding and chest-feeding holds — and the bonds it creates in a family," said Lovely. "Also the food sovereignty it ensures, the health outcomes it guarantees, and the sacredness that it carries."

Mashpee Wampanoag Clan Mothers also signed a letter of support. In the letter, Clan Mothers, including Anita "Mother Bear" Peters of the Bear Clan; and Marlene Lopez of the Rabbit Clan, said the trainings were vital to the Mashpee tribal community and beyond.

"A strong, knowledgeable, supportive community surrounding a lactating parent is often the most crucial component to a parent being successful in offering that milk medicine to a baby," read the letter.

Clan Mothers also said that the training will guarantee that local Native communities will have knowledgeable and competent individuals ready to support new parents.

"This training fits right into this growing interest, especially at a time where we, as a people, are growing so rapidly," read the letter.

Breastfeeding builds community connections

For Lovely, the community support has been one of the most important aspects of holding the training in Mashpee Wampanoag territory.

"This is a huge opportunity to focus on and increase the resources we have in our community," said Lovely. "It's about the passion we have to help our people. It will do nothing but strengthen our tribe in a very healthy way."

Rachael Devaney writes about community and culture. Reach her at rdevaney@capecodonline.com . Follow her on Twitter: @RachaelDevaney.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: 'Biggest baby boom.' Mashpee tribe wants to reduce baby formula use, strengthen community