Breast Intentions

Allison Dixley

Sujets

• Pregnancy

Informations

• Publié par: Pinter & Martin Limited
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 0001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781780662183
• Langue: English

Extrait

BREAST INTENTIONS
BREAST INTENTIONS
How women sabotage breastfeeding for themselves and others
Allison Dixley
Breast Intentions: how women sabotage breastfeeding for themselves and others

First published in the UK by Pinter & Martin Ltd 2014

Copyright Allison Dixley 2014

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-1-78066-215-2

Also available as an ebook

The right of Allison Dixley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act of 1988

Edited by Susannah Marriott Index by Helen Bilton

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade and otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher s prior consent in any form or binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall

This book has been printed on paper that is sourced and harvested from sustainable forests and is FSC accredited

Pinter & Martin Ltd 6 Effra Parade London SW2 1PS

pinterandmartin.com
To the doubters, the cynics and the apologists, for keeping the fire in my belly to prove them wrong.
Contents
Introduction
1 Deception
2 Guilt
3 Excuses
4 Envy
5 Contempt
6 Defensiveness
7 Sabotage
In Conclusion: a future for breastfeeding?
Epilogue: how to own your breastfeeding journey
Endnotes
Bibliography
Glossary of terms
Index
Introduction
Like tears, milk is functional; but it also has a lot to say about us . Fiona Giles, 2003, Fresh Milk: The Secret Life of Breasts 1
The issue of breastfeeding vs formula feeding is under the media lens now more than ever. The tabloid press prints stories of alpha mums who - shockingly - breastfeed well beyond the eruption of their baby s first tooth. Broadsheets roll out schizophrenic arguments that extol the virtues of breastfeeding one day and diminish them the next morning. Television shows invite breastfeeding experts to lecture the public on the perils of jealous husbands and what to do when your milk runs out . Academic journals pour over the physiological, societal and even philosophical aspects of a mother s infant-feeding choice. Google the phrase giving up breastfeeding and the internet explodes.
Many women having babies today were formula-fed as infants. And the world around them is dominated by perceptions of infant feeding that can only be described as regressive: as a species, we have moved from the uncostly, self-regulating and environmentally friendly breast to the unquenchable industrial teat - a capitalist s dream. In essence, the human race has rejected a wholesome, biologically normal way of nourishing its young and replaced it with an illusion of normalcy built on the consumption of synthetic goods (well, okay, not the entire human race, just the so-called developed sector of the species). In the UK for instance, only 23 percent of six-week-old babies are receiving the optimum nutrition for their species by being exclusively breastfed according to the NHS Infant Feeding Survey (2010). The rest have been removed - quite abruptly in evolutionary terms - from their mothers breasts and are fed instead via plastic breast replicas containing the milk of an alien species. Consequently, the sight of a mother suckling her offspring - once common in our collective consciousness - is now foreign, and often framed as a vision of repulsion. The bottle has become culturally synonymous with infancy; it symbolises our exchange of natural excellence for man-made mediocrity.
Even if a mother can defy this culture, deciding to breastfeed does not ensure success. At six months of age, just 34 percent of British babies are receiving some breast milk, the same survey tells us; most of them, in conjunction with formula. Why? You might think research instruments like the NHS Infant Feeding Survey could tell us. But their focus is on breastfeeding initiation, and while their research is quantitatively useful, it provides little qualitative understanding of women s unique experiences and conflicts - of why they take up or give up nursing. The truth is that breastfeeding is not, for a woman, simply a means of getting nutrition into a baby; it is part of her psychosocial transition to motherhood. 2 The nebulous nature of breastfeeding makes answers to why it is so difficult elusive and strategies for change evasive.
The contemporary mother-child relationship is characterised by tension from the very start - some studies describe early motherhood as a moral minefield . 3 Why the wartime language? Because infant feeding has become an increasingly probed domain; rightly so, considering its vital importance to the healthy development of babies. Exclusive breastfeeding for six months provides numerous protective factors for both baby and mother. Chief among these is protection against infant gastrointestinal infections, observed not only in developing but also industrialised countries. Adults who were breastfed as babies are slimmer. Children and adolescents who have been breastfed are smarter, even when confounding factors are accounted for. 4 Indeed, most women know breastfeeding is better for baby, 5 and as the saying goes, When you know better, you do better . So why aren t women translating their knowledge about breastfeeding s supremacy into action?
SOCIETY VS WOMAN
Since most contemporary women fail at breastfeeding, society readily accepts the idea that mothers are in no way to blame for the failure - if everyone is failing, this must be down to the difficulty of the task. Such reactive explanations convey the idea that breastfeeding is something women have little control over. This idea is now so taken for granted that it pervades mainstream opinion and prevents us from obtaining a deeper and truer understanding of women s breastfeeding experience. Currently, women are expected to fail at breastfeeding; it fits in with our pro-formula society s self-fulfilling raison d tre. The argument that individual women aren t responsible for their failure to breastfeed appears plausible, comprehensible and consistent with the timeless and persistent world-view of women as the weaker sex. Some commentators (ironically defining themselves as feminists) are so bent on over-framing breastfeeding as a sociological issue, that they have taken to describing the biological process of lactation as a reproductive ritual (notice the hyper-cultural word ritual , implying that nursing one s baby is some sort of man-made ceremony), 6 while others describe lactation as bordering on a patriarchal conspiracy, a misogynistic net in which to snare women, tethering them to their babies and thus to the often-ridiculed domestic sphere. 7
Yet this response to a normal bodily function is needlessly reactive and awkwardly paternal. A blame-free breastfeeding culture infantilises women, framing them not as active agents capable of controlling their destiny and achieving their goals, but as passive wallflowers at the mercy of forces they are powerless to defy. I concede that social influences play a role in breastfeeding, but I believe they are merely a small part, not the whole, of a woman s breastfeeding journey. Culture may predict aspects of a woman s breastfeeding performance, but not its totality.
The aforementioned sociological stance on understanding breastfeeding - that the likelihood of success is as fickle as the flip of a coin - is clearly not working. The best conclusion sociological studies have come up with for mothers quitting breastfeeding is that the reasons lie buried deep within our culture . 8 Even the statistics emerging from sociological studies are not clear-cut. In some, older mothers are found to have higher breastfeeding rates; 9 in others, younger women out-breastfeed their elders. 10 In some studies, women with relatively high levels of education have stronger breastfeeding performances; 11 in others, the lower Mum s educational attainment, the likelier she is to breastfeed, 12 while in more studies maternal education has zero bearing. 13 Sociological fetishes like age, education and socio-economic status paint only a cursory picture of what is really going on. To illustrate, consider this universal fact: when mothers are given the exact same opportunities and the exact same constraints, some will succeed while others fail. Why? Previous scholarly discourse hypothesising the cause has tended to look to habits and customs. But one piece of the puzzle has so far evaded the discourse - personality.
A mother s personality has a direct effect on how she interprets and transforms her circumstances. Rather than adopt the same old defeatist and paternalistic society is to blame rhetoric, in this book I will argue that a mother s responses to breastfeeding are acutely idiosyncratic. Until now, personality has been neglected and downplayed in the infant-feeding debate. Neglected because its varied nature makes personality difficult to study; downplayed because looking at personality arouses uncomfortable thoughts and emotions that hinge on anti-collectivist notions, such as personal responsibility and individual determinism. Mothers being responsible for their actions? Who d a thunk it!
AN INDIVIDUALISTIC APPROACH
I contend that all behaviour begins with a mother s personality and ripples outwards. These ripples often take the form of emotion. Maternal emotion is of pivotal importance to a mother s breastfeeding performance, acting as it does as an intermediary between her personality and the culture surrounding her. Yet the emotional world of women s interactions with regard to infant feeding remains largely unacknowledged - it represents a private sphere, and private experiences are not