My name is Helena Pachon and I am a graduate student at Cornell
University.  My areas of interest include maternal and child nutrition and
Hispanic health issues.
        For my master's research in community nutrition, I will be working
with Cooperative Extension in New York City, conducting focus groups with
lower income EFNEP (Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program)
participants.
        The goals of this research are

 1) to learn more about the barriers to breastfeeding among Hispanic (most
likely Puerto Rican) and African-American (most likely US-born, as opposed
to Caribbean-born) women and
2) to use this information to improve the breastfeeding promotion program
that Cooperative Extension currrently has in New York City.

        I would be particularly interested in learning about

1) your experiences and feelings about why breastfeeding is so particularly
challenging to minority, lower-income women
2) any references you can direct me to that would shed more light on this
topic and
3) what questions or topics you  would  raise in a discussion with minority,
lower-income women about breastfeeding barriers (eg  lack of social support,
need to return to work, attitudes toward breastfeeding in public, etc)

Thanks.