USBC Membership Meeting Mission Moment with Lourdes Santaballa

​The U.S. Breastfeeding Committee hosted a Membership Meeting on Thursday, March 21. The biannual event brings together the nearly 140 member organizations that comprise the USBC which work collaboratively to drive policy and practice changes that create a landscape of breastfeeding support.

At the opening of the meeting, USBC board member Lourdes Santaballa delivered the Mission Moment, recalling her story of joining the USBC and reflecting on the growth of the USBC as a coalition of organizations. Thank you, Lourdes, for grounding us and inspiring our collective power to keep working towards more equitable systems and policies for breastfeeding families!

Below is a transcript of Lourdes's mission moment.*

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Lourdes Santaballa 
USBC Elected Director

I'm Lourdes. I use she/her/ella pronouns. I live in Puerto Rico, and I work for Alimentación Segura Infantil, or ASI, and I'm also a USBC board member. For today’s Mission Moment, I want everybody to think about their "how I joined the USBC" story.

Some are more exciting than others. It could be that you were invited to join, or that your coalition has always been a member since the organization existed, or you were asked to go to the NBCC on behalf of somebody, or you just attend the membership virtually. There are so many stories, but I'm going to share mine very briefly. ​

​In 2016, a mentor who was active in the organization  ̶  I'm going to name her Elizabeth  ̶ sent me the link for the application for the Legacy Scholarship. At the time, I participated in my state coalition. I was a counselor for a peer organization. She suggested that I apply, and I did. And I got it! As a result, I got to go to the National Breastfeeding Conference and Convening. 

I have to say that sometimes I felt frustrated at my local meetings. Instead of being focused on clinical skills with important speakers telling us how to do things  ̶ and I'm not saying that those conferences aren't valuable, I know those are super important in our work  ̶ the USBC conference was about organizing. I had never seen such a diversity of races, ethnicities, geography, gender, lactation specialization. And every voice was valued and given the opportunity to speak.

This was 2016. At the time, what I was seeing that year was the result of sort of a revolution, or maybe people don't like that word, but at least a revisioning of what a national breastfeeding coalition could be. So state and territorial coalitions are still part of the backbone of USBC, but the vertebrae now include community-based organizations and cultural coalitions, as well as organizations where breastfeeding is not the only work that they do. 

But these are organizations that are working for the right to breastfeed, chest feed, and feed human milk. These organizations are also committed to naming and battling inequities and gathering voices to impact public policy and health systems to work for all families who just want the biological norm for their children. 

My story includes a hurricane in 2017, Hurricane Maria. And I really think that were it not for some of the connections that I made through USBC, I might not have had the support to start Alimentación Segura Infantil. ASI is now the largest infant and child feeding organization in Puerto Rico and is focused on increasing services and skills in our most marginalized communities.

So, what can I say about USBC since it's been nine years now? I've been through different committees. I've seen many people come and go  ̶  and that's okay. I've seen amazing things happen. I've seen mistakes too. I think we do better every day. I think we've impacted phenomenal legislation and that the story doesn't end here. And you are important! 

I also want to highlight that yesterday, Mead Johnson, the producer of the Enfamil formula, was found liable in a trial for failing to warn consumers of the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) associated with its formula for premature infants. I do think that all of us have a finger in that moment. 

I want you all to know that USBC is not just the staff. USBC is not just the board. USBC is not just the coalitions. It's not the member organizations. It's you. And more so it is the families who are receiving equitable care and policy because of the work that we do. So, I want you to continue to feel invested in this organization. And I want you to know that USBC has grown and will continue to grow. We may have boulders that we face in the interim, and part of that is that the powers that be want us all to be fighting with each other so that Mead Johnson, Abbott, Nestle, Danone, and everybody can keep doing their thing.

We're more than that.

So, remember our brave space guidelines, because there may be people here that you love, and there may be people that you don't like that much, but we're all doing this together. That is my mission moment. Thank you so much for being here, for being present, and for being in it for the long haul.

*The opinions stated in this blog are from the writer, and should not be perceived as a position statement from the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee. 

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In recognition of this call to action, we invite all organizations with a commitment to the USBC mission to join the USBC Membership. As a member, your organization will have access to twice-annual membership meetings, the First Food Connection Hub, Constellation work groups, training opportunities, member discounts, and more to build our collective capacity to eliminate the barriers to breastfeeding success. We hope to connect with you in the Hub!