About Us

Melissa Courts, BS, IBCLC-(executive director/president) 

Celina Courts, CLS Certified lactation specialist- (vice president)

Aja Canales, BSN, RN, CEFM, CLS labor and delivery nurse (secretary)

Brittany Hugue, CLC, Certified Lactation Counselor, (treasurer)

Black Breastfeeding Coalition of Ohio (BBCO) is a community organization that was established in 2018.  It has had a Facebook page and presence since that time. It was established as a 501c3 non-profit organization in September of  2021. 

BBCO was inspired by Melissa better known as" Missy" who worked as a International Board Certified Lactation Consultant for the WIC program in Dayton, Ohio for 17 years. Having knowledge of breastfeeding disparities among black mothers and babies  and also recognizing the alarmingly high rate of infant mortality rates in Ohio along with working with many black prenatal and breastfeeding mothers and hearing their needs and  concerns including the need for continued breastfeeding encouragement, support, and education that is lacking in the community gave her the drive and ambition to establish BBCO. 

Later after recognizing the need for other support services which are likely to increase the chances of breastfeeding success as well as the outpouring of mothers reaching out to Celina and Melissa for support and information about many different services, they decided that it was important to include other services along with with ensuring that breastfeeding mothers have resources for support, information, and assistance. 

REBIRTHING, REVIVING, RECLAIMING, and SAVING our community!

God gave us this mission and purpose to serve in his Kingdom. We are honored that he has chosen us to make a difference in the lives of mothers, babies, and families. We will honor him in all that we do. Our mission is to provide education, services, and support to our community resulting in the best health outcomes for families with a key focus on addressing issues, specific obstacles, barriers, and challenges that contribute to low breastfeeding rates among black mothers and the alarmingly high rates of infant mortality among black infants in the state of Ohio. 

According to the the latest reports from the Ohio Department of Health from 2010-2019, black infants die at a rate almost 3 times as that of white infants. Reports also show that preterm births is one of the largest risks to infant mortality. Two thirds of infants who died in 2019 were born preterm with black infants being more likely to be born at less than 24 weeks gestation (43% vs. 28% respectively) Furthermore as of 2020, exclusively breastfeeding rates at discharge from hospitals was 36.8% compared to whites at 56.7 % and hispanics at 45.9%. 

We want to bring about change through encouraging, supporting, educating, and empowering families as well as building a network of partnership with others to help contribute to these efforts in our targeted areas. We believe that we can achieve this by offering a variety of services to mothers, fathers, and babies. Including but not limited to prenatal education and breastfeeding education, lactation support and assistance, childbirth education and providing referrals to doula services, infant education, mother and father support groups, parenting classes, self care and empowerment education, nutrition education, mental health education, financial education and assistance, assistance with family needs along with a variety of family activities.  Showing families how to advocate for themselves and emphasizing the importance of making well informed choices is also a very important part of our mission. 

In addition, collaborating and partnering with other individuals and organizations in different parts of Ohio who also serve and work with our target population is also a very important part of our mission. We would like to support others missions and work together as we all strive to ensure that mothers and babies are getting all of the services that they need and to change these alarming statistics throughout the state of of Ohio ensuring the best health outcomes for families.