About The Obsidian Milk Collective
A movement for Lactation Justice.
Black-led. Rooted in Justice. Community-Centered.
The Obsidian Milk Collective (OMC) is Alabama’s first Black-led nonprofit lactation practice, advancing Lactation Justice through comprehensive clinical lactation care, education, workforce development, advocacy, community power, and systems change.
OMC is reimagining what access to lactation care can look like across Alabama by building a model where families can receive knowledgeable, culturally responsive care while addressing the larger systems that determine who has access to that care in the first place.
Who We Are
The Obsidian Milk Collective was founded to address the inequities that continue to shape lactation access and outcomes for Black families.
Lactation does not happen in isolation. A family's ability to reach their feeding goals can be shaped by access to knowledgeable providers, insurance coverage, cost, transportation, geography, workplace conditions, cultural representation, healthcare systems, and public policy.
OMC exists to change those conditions.
We provide comprehensive clinical lactation care while working beyond the individual visit to strengthen the systems surrounding families. Through education, workforce development, community partnerships, advocacy, and systems change, we work to ensure families have not only access to care, but the information, resources, representation, and power to make and advocate for their own informed infant-feeding decisions.
By centering the families who experience the greatest barriers to lactation care, we are building toward an Alabama where access and opportunity are not determined by race, geography, insurance coverage, or ability to pay.
Our Mission
The Obsidian Milk Collective advances Lactation Justice by expanding access to skilled, culturally responsive lactation care and education, strengthening a representative lactation workforce, and building community power to transform the systems that shape infant feeding choices and outcomes across Alabama.
Our Vision
We envision an Alabama where every family has the information, support, resources, representation, and power to make and sustain informed infant feeding decisions, regardless of race, income, insurance status, or geography.
Our Values
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We believe equitable systems are built by centering those who experience the greatest barriers within them. When lactation systems are designed around the families with the least access to information, skilled care, financial resources, representation, and institutional power, we create systems that work better for everyone. Lactation Justice means more than making services available. It means ensuring families have the information, resources, support, and power to make informed infant feeding decisions, and meaningful opportunities to shape the systems that affect those decisions.
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We center the experiences, knowledge, needs, and leadership of Black families while building systems of lactation care that create greater access and the conditions for families and communities to thrive. We honor the histories and lived experiences that shape Black lactation while building toward something different.
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We believe communities should have power in shaping the policies, programs, resources, and systems that affect them. We listen to and learn from lived experience, build alongside community, strengthen connections, and create opportunities for collective action.
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We believe families deserve care from a workforce that reflects, understands, and respects the communities it serves. We invest in pathways that increase representation and create the conditions for Black and culturally representative lactation professionals to enter, grow, thrive, and remain in the field.
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We believe comprehensive lactation care should be within reach of every family who needs it; not determined by income, insurance coverage, geography, transportation, provider availability, or other structural barriers. We work to identify, dismantle, and transform the conditions that prevent families from accessing care.
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We are accountable to the families and communities we serve. We listen, learn, and remain responsive to lived experience. Our work should be transparent, evidence-informed, and willing to challenge systems, practices, and our own approaches when they do not serve the people they were intended to serve.
Our Philosophy
At OMC, we understand lactation as more than an individual feeding decision.
We created Lactation Justice to name the conditions necessary for people to make informed infant-feeding decisions and access the care, resources, environments, and protections needed to carry those decisions out.
That means looking beyond individual behavior to the systems surrounding families: healthcare access, insurance coverage, transportation, employment, childcare, provider representation, public policy, community resources, and the historical conditions that continue to shape Black lactation experiences.
We believe equitable systems must be built by centering the people who experience the greatest barriers within them. When systems are responsive to families with the least consistent access to information, care, resources, representation, and institutional power, they become more accessible and responsive for everyone.
Families deserve care that respects their autonomy, honors their lived experiences, and supports their feeding decisions without judgment, coercion, or undue influence.
Lactation Justice is the foundation of how OMC provides care, builds programs, develops partnerships, strengthens the lactation workforce, builds community power, and advocates for systems change.
The LATCH Framework
Every aspect of OMC’s work is guided by the LATCH Framework, our approach to putting Lactation Justice into action.
Learn equips families and communities with knowledge.
Access removes barriers to comprehensive lactation care.
Thrive creates the conditions for families and providers to flourish.
Connect strengthens relationships, partnerships, and continuity of care.
Honor recognizes the history, dignity, autonomy, and diverse feeding journeys that shape our work.
Together, these five commitments guide how OMC serves families, develops programs, builds community power, and advocates for lasting systems change.
Join Us
Join us in building the future of lactation care.
Whether you’re seeking care, looking to partner, or investing in Lactation Justice, there’s a place for you in The Obsidian Milk Collective.
Together, we’re building an Alabama where comprehensive lactation care is accessible, culturally responsive, and rooted in the dignity and autonomy of every family.
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2025
The Obsidian Milk Collective begun as a program forward initiative.
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July 2026
OMC evolved into a statewide Lactation Justice organization with a new visual identity, the launch of The LATCH Letter, Stories That LATCH, the Lactation Access Initiative, expanded community partnerships, and a renewed vision for equitable access.