Our project examines infant growth and development in relation to infant feeding practices, immune response, and human milk. Our interdisciplinary team is composed by Megan Dean and Elena Ruíz from Michigan State University’s (MSU) Department of Philosophy, Alejandra Núñez de la Mora from Universidad Veracruzana’s Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas, and by Masako Fujita and Nerli Paredes Ruvalcaba from MSU’s Department of Anthropology. Funding from C4I will provide the opportunity to further examine these associations within the context of economic inequalities, racism, and gender-based violence. The goal of this project is to construct an interdisciplinary framework that links the structural, sociocultural context of infant-feeding practices to infant growth and development.

Additionally, funding from the C4I will facilitate the establishment of a collective of mothers and caretakers to build community with each other and to enable future, long-term collaborations to conduct community-based participatory research. This research comes at a critical time and place as the COVID-19 pandemic has constrained medical and community resources contributing to a rise in maternal mortality and the stop of some health services previously provided to pregnant people. Moreover, Mexico has high rates of maternal mortality and gender-based violence, with an average of 10 women being killed per day, giving rise to widescale protests demanding an end to gender-based violence. We’ve captured some of this context in the photographs included here, which depict community resistance against femicide and sexual violence in one of our research sites.