Kiddada Green Built a National Home for Black Breastfeeding Support

Let me tell you about Kiddada Green.

There’s a former Detroit schoolteacher who noticed that the mothers around her weren’t getting the breastfeeding support they deserved — so she built an organization to fix it, and then co-created a national movement around it. Her name is Kiddada Green, and she’s the founding executive director of the Black Mothers’ Breastfeeding Association.

The Work

Kiddada is the Founding Executive Director of the Black Mothers’ Breastfeeding Association (BMBFA), a Detroit-based organization she built into one of the nation’s most impactful community maternal-child health groups. BMBFA trains peer supporters, runs breastfeeding support circles, and partners with health systems and Medicaid plans to get culturally congruent care to families who’ve been overlooked.

She’s also a Co-Creator of Black Breastfeeding Week — the annual national campaign that put Black breastfeeding, and Black breastfeeding disparities, squarely in the public eye.

Her reach runs deep into systems work too. She’s Co-Principal Investigator of “Triple Crown: Babies Win. Families Thrive. Communities Transformed!” — a $5 million federal initiative integrating community-based maternal support into perinatal care — and she manages multi-million-dollar federal grants, foundation funding, and corporate partnerships. She was invited to a White House roundtable on maternal health justice, and she’s a Co-Founder of the Black Breastfeeding Caucus.

The Roots

Kiddada came to this work as an educator, not a clinician. She taught in Detroit Public Schools for 12 years before turning her attention to maternal and child health, and that classroom instinct — meet people where they are, teach patiently, build community — is still how she leads.

She holds a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and a Master’s in the Art of Teaching from Oakland University. She’s an alumna of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Community Leadership Network Fellowship and Ascension Health’s Business Accelerator Fellowship for social entrepreneurs.

Why You Should Know Her

Here’s why Kiddada Green matters right now: the gap between Black and white breastfeeding rates is one of the clearest measures of how unequal our health system still is. Kiddada didn’t wait for that system to fix itself — she built the community infrastructure to go around it, and then she fought her way into the rooms where the money and policy get decided.

She’s proof that a teacher from Detroit can reshape national maternal health.

Quick facts:

• Founding Executive Director, Black Mothers’ Breastfeeding Association (Detroit, MI)
• Co-Creator, Black Breastfeeding Week
• Co-Founder, Black Breastfeeding Caucus
• Co-PI, “Triple Crown” — $5M federal maternal-health initiative
• Michigan State University (B.A.) · Oakland University (M.A.T.)

Photo courtesy of Black Mothers’ Breastfeeding Association (bmbfa.org)