Please post your response to week 11’s readings on breastfeeding here!
25 thoughts on “Week 11 readings”
Blush
I learned a lot from this week’s readings! I grew up hearing that breastfeeding is the best way and the “right” way to feed your baby. However, I really had no idea of the physical and emotional difficulties of breastfeeding and how much of a 24 hour job it really is. Although I have never breastfed a baby, I empathized with Sonya Huber as she told of her breastfeeding experiences with her son Ivan. I appreciated how honest and realistic she was in her article, telling the reader about the feelings of hopelessness and frustration she felt toward her son and herself and how she had the desire to just go out and be able to feel like more than “just a pair of nipples”.
Huber also touched upon many other issues that undoubtedly affect all new mothers who are just learning how to breastfeed: the maddening amount of manuals and texts which try to teach the best way to hold your baby and help him “latch on”, the frustration when nurses and hospital staff ignore your pain or go against your desire and try to make you feed your baby formula when you clearly just want to breastfeed. I think actual classes and the help and advice of trained women who specialize in breastfeeding and maternal issues is most useful to new mothers who, realistically, shouldn’t be expected to just learn how to breastfeed from reading a book or looking at a picture.
I also thought that the article on breastfeeding women in Brazil was interesting because it brought up the point that it is possilble for infants to decide when they no longer want to breastfeed or, possibly, when they would rather try other tastes and foods. In this way, agency is given to infants, which suggests that “infants play an active role in making infant feeding decisions”. I think this is actually a positive idea because so many women often feel guilty or like bad mothers if they have trouble breastfeeding. However, I ultimately believe that babies should be given breastmilk for as long as possible because of the many health benefits associated with it. Whether this means committing to a breastfeeding regimen or using a breastpump, I believe the baby’s health should always be the biggest priority.
Nemo
Sonya Huber’s article “Sucker†was a riot. What fond memories it brought back to me! NOT! Like the process of childbirth, the difficulties, pain, messiness and mental anguish of learning to breastfeed are pushed to the recesses of my memory where they are diminished into nothing but fond memories. I don’t know how I got through it some days. I wish I could say that I was surprised when the nurses in the hospital left the bottle of formula by her bedside, but I have read hundreds of delivery records that have followed the same type of tactics, and what they don’t tell you is that if a new born infant has a bottle it is very difficult for it to go back on to the breast as it uses a different part of its mouth to suck and a bottle is so much easier to get milk out of, the breast requires a little effort, at least to start with. Sonya Huber’s article was lovely, my favorite part is that she pushed through and did not give up though. I think women do tend to give up too easily, due to the pressures described by Marshall et al in “Being a Good Motherâ€. Peer pressure, family pressure and attitudes and medical or health workers input and attitudes have a strong affect on a woman when she is doing something like breastfeeding, especially for the first time. I like how the this article brought up the women’s confidence levels often….I think that lack of confidence and unsurety of our actions at such a crucial time (being the sole provider of nutrition for your baby….for 6 months! Oh, no big deal) play an enormous role in a women’s ability to sustain breastfeeding. Rather than reading all the breastfeeding manuals and books women should read these two articles, they a truthful without being negative but let you know although this is the best thing you can do for your baby it is hard, it hurts and you do feel like a cow (literally). I did/felt so many things from the Marshall article that I didn’t realize was “normalâ€, like calling those periods of intense nonstop breasting bouts growth spurts, taking the fact that I used to leak all over the place as a sign that production was good and an almost word to word perfect replication of the conversation Paula had with her mother-in-law with my own.
b.green
Breastfeeding is a topic that I have had very little exposure to. In my family breastfeeding is something that is just assumed will be done because it is what is natural. There was no discussion of the pain and frustration that is often associated with breastfeeding. This may be because most women in my family were able to stay home with their children so they didn’t have the added obstacle of figuring out how to go back to work and breastfeed. I liked how most of the articles talked about the difficulties of women working and their need for me time and balancing the pressure of breastfeeding to be a “good motherâ€. I liked how the articles went beyond the scope of breast milk is the best for infants and those who don’t breast feed are trying to harm their babies. A common theme in the articles was the idea that women felt that they knew what was best for their child and how some women faced a lot of pressure from family, friends, nurses, and society to conform to the “ideal†of breastfeeding. At first I wasn’t really sure if I agreed with the idea of infant agency, but the more I thought about the article, the more validity I started to see in the argument. It also made me realize some infants may not want to breastfeed and it’s not fair to punish the mother for their infant’s actions.
Liz
While breast feeding is possibly one of the best things that you can do for your child because of its numerous benefits I think breast feeding can change part of a woman’s identity. Topics such as larger breasts and leakage cause some women to change their relationships with their husbands. Breast feeding has declined in some countries. In China, for instance, one Chinese woman stated that she switched to formula after just six weeks. She had several reasons, including difficulty losing weight and her husband mentioned that a sex life would not be possible because breast feeding was too tiring. Although this woman agreed that breast feeding did make her tired a lot, she also mentioned that she thought because breast feeding was messy it made him uncomfortable. Does that mean it has to be the end of her sex life? Maybe directly after giving birth might not be the best timing. I’m not sure because I’ve never had children. But, when the partner not breast feeding makes this decision without consulting the other partner it seems as if they are just adding more pressure for the breast feeding mother to identify herself in a more sexual manner again, which in this woman’s case requires supplementing breast milk for formula and that may not be something that the mother is willing to do. I can imagine that making the transition after having a child can be very difficult and can only hope that both my partner and I will be comfortable transitioning back and forth between different roles that becoming a parent might complicate.
HM
I’ve never thought of breastfeeding as something necessary to do for the health of a child or for any other reasons. My mother never breastfed me and I don’t think she ever intended to, and that has probably shaped how I feel about breastfeeding now. I agree that breastfeeding is best for an infant’s health, especially in places where there is a large risk of water being tainted that would make formula feeding possibly dangerous to a child, but I still don’t think of breastfeeding as being something that every woman should do, whether it is convenient for them or not. From the readings, it seemed that many women had trouble breastfeeding their baby and that breastfeeding took a large emotional toll on them. In some ways I think that breastfeeding isn’t worth the benefits for the baby if it is so difficult and discouraging to the mother. The health and well-being of the mother is very important as well, women shouldn’t be miserable or in pain just so they can provide extra immunity and nutrients to their baby. I have trouble seeing breastfeeding in any other way, and I think it is because I don’t ever want children and see them as a hassle and as something I wouldn’t want to deal with. This causes me to worry more about the mental and physical health of the mother as well as her ability to do what she chooses over the health of an infant. I recognize why the WHO would recommend breastfeeding, but I still think of it as a choice rather than as something that all of the mothers who faced trouble breastfeeding or getting their child to breastfeed, have to do. It seems like the pressure women receive to breast feed in some places makes the act even worse, while in other places the pressure to bottle feed or supplement breast milk with other liquids or foods creates a situation of anxiety for all mothers.
I was interested in the idea presented in the study on breastfeeding in Brazil, that babies have agency and can also shape the decision on whether or not to breastfeed. In the US we do think of infants as passive receptors of whatever way we choose to feed them, but from the experiences of the Brazilian women, it really did seem like babies were influencing the decision of the mother. You can’t breastfeed a baby that doesn’t want to breastfeed. It also made me wonder why recommendations about breast feeding don’t acknowledge what women should do if the child just won’t breastfeed. It seems like that lack of information made mothers feel like failures when their child wouldn’t do it unless they had social support that wasn’t from a medical background who could tell them that they had had the same experience. I think that this also proves that a biomedical viewpoint isn’t always the best and that the actual lived experiences of women are better and should be used to shape guidelines on breastfeeding.
Smile
One of the most nutritional and satisfying food for infants is the breast milk produced by a woman’s body. The ability for human body to produce this milk for infants is so amazing to me. What’s so interesting about it is that the milk that is produced has all the nutrients the infant needs to survive and it helps to build the infants immune system and the infant is less likely to have certain infectious diseases such as diarrhea, middle ear infections, and certain lung infections. Before I actually knew about breastfeeding and how good it is for the baby I thought that it was so odd and I heard from the media and also from other people how painful it is and how time consuming it can be to actually nurse a child. After hearing these horror stories my first instinct about breastfeeding is that I will never do it, I will get all the things I need for my baby from the formula. However after learning so much about its impact on the child and how important the nutrients in the breast milk is and how it benefits the baby more, I definitely reconsidered. Most of the discomfort that women feel during the beginning of the breastfeeding period is the fact that they are not doing it properly and that it is a skill that needs to be mastered before it becomes comfortable for both the mother and the infant. It is also a very close bonding experience for both mother and child where they share time together and the mother can feel a sense of pride being able to nourish their baby and give them everything that they need to survive. Society plays a role in giving a negative depiction of it. For example, when people see a mother breastfeeding their baby on a bus they automatically give negative looks and so forth because it is not something that our culture is used to seeing. The reading that I found interesting was the Infant Agency and Its Implication for Breast-Feeding Promotion in Brazil, which discussed how women in Brazil do not breastfeed because they feel that it is not what the infants want and how health promotion has been implemented for these women to know the importance of breastfeeding for the infant. Not so many women know a lot about breastfeeding and the importance of it so they feel that they do not need to do it. It is very important for women to know all the benefits and advantages that breastfeeding can do and ways to encourage more mothers to do so.
faves06
I have personally heard that breast milk is more beneficial for an infant because of the immunities that it will receive from the mother. But it is difficult for some infants to latch on and I believe that this is where formula should come in. If I were a mother, my first choice would be to breastfeed, but if complications arose, I would not hesitate to give my child formula because it would still need nutrients, no matter where they came from.
In talking with my mother about the topic, she was told the theory of the “Breast was Best†in all the classes she went to when she was pregnant with her three children (between 1985-1991). When I was younger, my mom used to joke that I was the smart one in the family because I breastfed longest. She said it was easier at night to breastfeed because you didn’t have to go to the kitchen to get a bottle and warm it up. But as we got older, it was more difficult because no one else could help feed us. Her and my dad couldn’t switch off each night with who got up with the baby because she had the breasts. When she decided to supplement her breast milk with formula, some other mothers made her feel sort of guilty.
The article Sucker was interested and understandable frustrating for the author. I can see where she felt like she was cheating on her child with a machine but no matter how the child is getting the milk, they are still receiving the nutrients. I have heard that there are a lot of classes on breastfeeding but not as much on pumping and for mothers looking to do everything “naturally,†pumping is a source of technology that they may not want to use.
Sashi29
In Sonya Huber’s article, “Sucker: Who in God’s name said breast is best?â€, I appreciated her detailed account of the absolute turmoil she encountered to breastfeed. I felt my heart pounding and my eyes wanted to read as fast as I could to find out, would the baby be able to receive the breast milk and would the mother be able to survive the pain and anguish of breastfeeding? She discusses the contradictions that occur in the United States where it is not acceptable for a woman to breastfeed in public, and yet they are subjected to a barrage of public judgments from health conscious strangers if they are choosing not to breastfeed, and instead formula feed. It struck me that women’s bodies are constantly under scrutiny and made an object of public discourse. I am reminded of the journalist in Zambia who took photos of a woman giving birth in her car because she was turned away from two hospitals because the hospitals couldn’t help her, was on trial for porn charges. Instead of looking at the failed public health system the journalist was charged with exposing photos of a birth and the government denounced the photos as pornographic. Then yesterday, after two months of battling in this case the journalist’s charges were dropped. The question arises, why are the natural biological processes of a women’s bodies sexualized and criminalized? Such that breastfeeding in public or a birth photos in the media could be seen as an inappropriate display of the female body and even pornographic?
Boston
The artile “Sucker” was a comical and straight forward portrayal of breast feeding. Not having any personal experience, this article certainly brought to my attention many feelings that new mothers have aside from the joy of holding their baby. I was unaware that breast feeding was not a natural reflex because I had heard about the rooting reflex and assumed that they went hand in hand. I can completely understand the frustrations and dissapointment that a new mother would have when they are unable to feed their baby. The extreme pain that this causes the new mother makes the situation much worse because they have already put their body through 9 months of turmoil and just when they thought it was over it became more intense. Also, it is a very bad double standard that women are encouraged to breast feed but are scrutinized when they do so in public. Although I do not want to see women breast feeding everywhere it is a completely natural thing to do. It is unreasonable that women be expected to stay at home all the time so that they can feed their newborns. There should be more public places that have a room for mothers to go to breastfeed. Even bathrooms at the mall have a changing table but no real comfortable and private place to breast feed. Having such rooms available would encourage new moms to leave their houses and do something other than sit on the couch and breast feed all day. This would make the mothers much happier and relieve some of the stress that they experience during the beginning of their childs life.
Sand
First, I found it very interesting that BFHI sponsored by UNICEF and WHO, was indeed so active globally. Two different spots in the word, with the same guidelines; guidelines that arguably have some faults. I would very much like to read these guidelines for myself. I hope we go over in them in class tomorrow.
Marshall, Godfrey and Renfrew’s research also interested me. I was surprised that they found most women deciding to breast feed in late pregnancy. In my family breast feeding is something older women talk about with younger women a great deal. But, my family tends to always have at least one baby and nursing mother at a time. So perhaps it just comes up a great deal, because it was visible. Regardless, growing up it was considered a given, if you have a baby, you nurse it. I remember being a little girl and pretending to nurse dolls. So I was surprised that moms-in-the-making, did not think of it right away. Nursing is up there on my top fears of “gross and painful things from baby making.â€(Feeling sick and getting big, labor, nursing, stretch marks.)
But on the other hand, I was not surprised in there findings that spouses affect a women’s choice on nursing or not to nurse. When you think about it, it’s one of the very first “parenting choices†people make. I can understand, why women would want there partner to be happy with the choice. Personally, my boyfriend’s mother has told me that she would like her grandchildren to be nursed. My parents have never said to me I must become a milk-maker, but I know they assume that I will. It’s their baby too, although it is my body, so I can see how tricky this question becomes for women who do not want to follow their families’ wishes.
The piece “Sucker†made me laugh. But it expressed also a deeper fear of mine.
(A fear that grows deeper very time my partner gets a raise, very time I think about graduation, very time someone I know has a baby ect.) WHAT IF I’M A BAD MOM! All the women in my family (God willing, this will continue) have been wonderful Mom’s right away. They all have their babies without drugs, vaginally, with a room full of their sisters, aunts and their mom, they all nurse, they all take pictures, they look great ect. What if I’m the first one of the girls to mess it up? Quite a bit of pressure. They all laugh at me, but this nursing business sounds tricky and there seems to be a large margin of where I could mess it up. Other women (like the ones we read about) have problems nursing both in actual nursing and in their lives around nursing. What I have to go to work and I can’t nurse! Would that make me a bad mom? (When I say this, my Aunts say “that is why you should stay home for the first few years! Like it’s that simple.) I agree with Huber and Marshall, Godfrey and Renfrew; that people and more importantly my family (I don’t care about the people part, I care about the family part a great deal) seem to believe that nursing is a whole lot better. I think people would find me neglectful, if I did not nurse. My mother nursed my sisters (me too, but I only remember my sisters) until they could walk, talk (Lauren used to say “Give me side!†when she wanted to be nursed) and play with me. Last year my middle sister took a fit about something, and my Mother whispered to my Dad “Do you think we should of nursed her longer? I did not nurse her as long as the others, because I got pregnant with Lauren.†At the time I thought it was funny for her to think that. But now, looking back, I’m beginning to wonder, just how important is nursing? And what if I mess it up?
pinkis123
The article “Sucker: who in god’s name said breast is best?†by Sonya Huber really caught my attention. I knew the basics about breast feeding before reading this, but after completing it I was completely shocked. It was almost sad as I felt so terrible for that poor woman trying to feed her baby, but having such difficulties. I actually cringed as I read about how sore and cut up she was from the breast feeding, and even advance preparation in “roughing up†her nipples did not make the pain any better when the real thing was happening. Her story makes me quite nervous about having my own child. I am scared to endure all of that pain and suffering just to feed my baby. I did not realize how difficult and complicated that process can be when everything does not go smoothly and perfectly, and so much patience as well as preparation is involved. It amazed me how much Huber did to prepare for breast feeding- classes, books, etc. I did not really consider that breast feeding can be so emotionally draining until I read this story. I was also amazed that the nurse and staff in the hospital did not do much to help Huber with the breast feeding after she gave birth. She was ignored a lot of the time, and was given formula, probably to shut her up. That is ridiculous. The easiest thing to do, as an outside perspective on the situation, would be to just feed the baby formula, but as the mother, I know breast milk is first priority, as I want my own baby to be breast fed. Huber should not feel bad about using a breast pump, because at least the baby is still getting the milk and nutrients needed from his mother. If latching on to the nipple is such a problem, as it was in Huber and Ivan’s case, then I do not see anything wrong with using a machine, as it has the same end result.
Also, It is incredible how much social judgment there are from such a natural and necessary process. It is kind of contradictory, because on the one hand people look down upon seeing a breast or open breast feeding out in public, but on the other hand, people also look down upon babies being fed formula through a bottle. Therefore, it’s a lose-lose situation. It’s hard to take your baby out in public without worrying about how and where you are going to feed it, and who might be watching or judging. Breast feeding is supposed to be the “best†way to feed your baby, but it really is an intense emotional and physical, as well as time-consuming, process to go through.
ILoveBueno
Before I started reading these articles my opinion on breast feeding was less than favorable. I grew up with my mom telling me that breast feeding wasn’t necessary. She hadn’t breastfed because she worked and so she thought it would have been too difficult to manage breastfeeding and working. I’d also heard stories that your breasts become saggy if you breast feed. Plus I felt like breastfeeding wasn’t really for working moms: how do you deal with leakage and such in the workplace? Should you use a pump? There just seemed to be too many gray areas.
The “Sucker” article was hilarious and also kind of scary. I didn’t know there was pain associated with breast feeding and that this “latching” issue discussed in all the articles was so difficult! I could see how a mom would be exasperated from something like that but would also want the closeness to their baby that comes from breastfeeding and also the health benefits associated with feeding your child breast milk.
The “being a good mother article” about managing breast feeding with other roles made the most sense to me. The women’s concerns seemed very valid. When I was reading about whether or not the women felt it was okay to supplement breast with bottle I thought back to the article on the Brazilian women. Overall I guess I became a bit more confused. Will a baby reject the breast after bottle feeding? I didn’t know there was so much involved in breast feeding and so much that could go wrong. It was kind of scary. But I agree that whether you choose to breast or bottle feed your child comes from your background and the sort of education you receive either way. I think that maybe I could breast feed my child (whenever that day comes) if I had a lot of social support to navigate things like leakage or a baby not being able to latch correctly. If there was better maternal health care in the United States maybe women would choose breast feeding more often for example if they had health professionals who could come to their house and help them navigate breast feeding.
Another aspect of the Brazil article I found interesting was the idea of infant agency. At first I thought babies don’t have agency and do whatever their parents do for them, however from this article I realized that infants can reject the breast and maybe even start to choose what they want. I don’t know how much agency I would attribute to an infant vs. the trepidation of the mother relating to breastfeeding. I feel like if a mother doesn’t feel comfortable breast feeding it shows in the way she acts while breastfeeding and an infant could read those signs and feel uncomfortable. Whereas if a mother felt more comfortable bottle feeding the infant would prefer being bottle fed because their mother’s body language would be more comforting.
Overall the impression I got from the readings was that breast feeding can be a very controversial choice for a mother to make. I’ve read articles about women getting in trouble in airports or malls for breastfeeding their child in public and I think that a very large problem is that there is not enough support for new mothers and people in the United States think breast feeding is kind of gross because we look at breasts as being very sexual instead of a source of nourishment. I definitely think that choosing to breast feed your child is very noble considering all the different issues a breast feeding mother faces however I also wouldn’t discount any mother for choosing to bottle feed their child. Being a new mother is hard enough without the medical community breathing down your back about breast feeding.
Love
After having read the article Sucker, is when I decided to start my writing flow.
My focus is going to be on the title Sucker itself. It is a pun. Sucker can mean a few things, here are some definitions: a person or thing that sucks; a part of an animal adapted for sucking nourishment; to make a sucker of; fool; hoodwink, etc (Dictionary.com). Going by these definitions, we see that either a child can be what is sucking from the womans breast. By definition two, it is referring to animals, not humans. And by definition three, it is a derogatory word.
Therefore, the title “Sucker”, which one is it referring to? Sucker meaning that a baby is sucking on your breast for the “natural” way of breast feeding instead of giving the baby formula. But does it also mean that the woman is a sucker if she does bread feed? Or does it mean that she is a sucker because she does not breast feed, because in this article, ‘breast is best’.
There is much conflict about breast feeding and whether or not it should be done and if it is done, where can it be done, because a woman should not show her breast in public. If she does, it is indecent exposure, but it is also showing the other women who have children that do not breast feed, that that is what they should be doing, because it is such a loud “statement”. Breast feeding is looked at as the ‘natural’ way of feeding an infant, but as we have talked about in class, ‘natural’ should not even be used. Everyone has their own definition of natural, dictionary.com says: Natural: existing in or formed by nature; proper to the circumstances of the case; in conformity with the ordinary course of nature, etc. I think that natural should be the second definition listed, ‘proper to the circumstances of the case’. Therefore if this is the definition, then if the mother wants to breast feed or if the mother wants to formula feed, both ways are natural.
Breast feeding is something that is done by choice. Many studies have been done on the difference of the outcome of the child and there are many benefits to it that usually outweigh the downfall, but millions of people also formula feed and well, the world is still going around. The mother should not be considered a sucker, the only one that is the sucker is the baby, in the sense that they are sucking milk, whether it is from the breast or from the bottle, they are sucking, therefore, the sucker of the milk. It should not be used in any other form, not in a derogative way nor in a way that says one thing is better than the other. Freedom of choice.
Arewa
I really enjoyed reading this week’s articles. Not to say I didn’t know about breastfeeding, but I didn’t know how important it was to breastfeed and all the controversies behind it. Breastfeeding is one of the most natural and beneficial acts a mother can do for her child. When mother’s breast feed their child a lot of things of going on. For one the baby gains a lot of nutrients from the mother’s milk which can prevent a number of childhood diseases. Breastfeeding is not only beneficial to the infant but also to the mother. I don’t think people realize how important breastfeeding is.
In the article “Infant Agent and Its Implication for Breast-Feeding Promotion in Brazil” there was a story about a mother in Brazil named Flavia who breastfed her daughter for about 6 weeks and on the 7th week she began to feed her small bottles of water. She said it was because her daughter was dehydrated and began to sweat. Her community health worker told her that breast milk keeps infants hydrated. Flavia continued to breast feed her daughter but then said her daughter did not want to be breast fed anymore. She began to bottle feed her daughter. And said her daughter knew it was time for a change. I understand that Flavia’s daughter is missing out on getting all the antibodies and nutrients from her mother’s breastmilk, but some people believe that if you don’t breast feed your child then they are missing out on the initial bond between you and the child. My friend asked me once if I would be upset if my child does not latch on to my breast when I’m breast feeding and I said OF COURSE NOT. There are many different ways a mother and child can bond. A mother bonds with her child when bottlefeeding, bathing, changing the diapers and just general playing around. The only disadvantage Flavia’s daughter has when her mother began to wean too early is because of the nutrients she is missing out on, but not the bonding. And also how much of an effect do you think these Public Health programs have on these mothers who wean early? It looks like in Brazil weaning early has become part of their culture. What I mean by this is that Flavia’s mother probably did it to her and her mother probably did it to her and so on. This is apart of their culture and is something that is common to them. What makes us think that trying to change that will be effective? Something to think about…
Finkle
These weeks’ articles were eye opening. I, along with my brothers and sisters were breastfed for two years as was the case with almost everyone I knew around me. But I have to say my mother and sisters got up to six months off their jobs when they had children which made the choice easier for them. It was not uncommon to see mother’s breastfeed their babies in public transportation vehicles, places of worship and at social gatherings. Baby formula was expensive and only available to the upper class women. In my mind, children had no choice but to accept breast milk. As the “Infant Agency and Its implication for breast-Feeding Promotion in Brazil†article points out, breastfeeding is vital in low income countries where poor sanitation is the norm in some neighborhoods. I guess I was one of those people that viewed an infant as having no agency when it came to breastfeeding, but then again, I have not been around that many infants. I guess the thought of an infant just refusing breast milk when another option was unavailable did not cross my mind. Culturally, breastfeeding has been presented to me as the only option and something that infants adapt to. Not all women have the option of staying home with their children for as long as they would like and for those women, breastfeeding is not the best option. The article “sucker†was an interesting and candid read. Breastfeeding has always been presented as something that occurs without any problems but we see that it is not the case. Not every woman’ story is typical and articles like this can be very helpful to women that struggle with breastfeeding their infants.
cupcake
The articles for this week were a bit of an eye opener. I learned quite a lot about breast-feeding. My mother enjoyed breast-feeding. She said it was such a special time between myself and her and she could have done it all day. Because of this, I grew up thinking breast-feeding was nothing like what the articles depicted.
At first I was skeptical when I read “Infant Agency and Its Implication for Breast-Feeding Promotion in Brazilâ€. I did not think infants had control over breast-feeding and could actually refuse it. However, as I continue to read the women’s stories, I was shocked. I did not realize the power a simple, tiny infant could have over breast-feeding. I grew up thinking that breast-feeding was simple and something that “just happenedâ€. Boy was I wrong!
Although the article “Sucker†seemed a little graphic, I found it to have a great balance of humor and seriousness. While Huber is able to laugh about it now, she really highlights the physical and emotional struggle of breast-feeding. I am glad I was able to read this article. I would never thought about having physical pain during breast feeding or going through the emotional battle of using a pump versus a breast. These articles really opened my views to all different experiences women have.
Mufasa
I really enjoyed this week’s readings and leant a lot. I have not been exposed to a lot about breastfeeding since mostly breast are viewed sexually. Most of our perceptions on breasts come from the media. After reading these articles I see breastfeeding from different viewpoints and see the struggles many women face with it. Since my childhood I have seen all the women in my family breastfeed. It was done discretely and was never discussed. It was just something that happened naturally after giving birth. I do feel women need to be more educated on breastfeeding all together. Up until now I was unaware of the pressures and difficulties of breastfeeding for mothers. It is very important and has a lot of benefits to the baby. One of the articles also mentions that some women in Brazil were unaware of the effects of giving their babies tea and water instead of their breast milk. I do not feel women are educated till they reach the state of breastfeeding to fully learn the importance and responsibility. There are a lot of pressures for women to breastfeed from society in general; this is not fair to mothers and infants who are not willing to receive breast milk. In this case agency is given to a newborn, which helps because women begin feeing guilty if they have any trouble breastfeeding. In my culture a women who does not breast feed is looked down upon but it is not as easy as it was back then. A lot more women have entered the workforce and do not have the time or luxury of breastfeeding or pumping milk for their child every 2-3 hours. I do feel a child should be breast fed as long as possible and in the future my baby’s health will come first.
lolo
I found “Sucker†by Sonya Huber to be quite entertaining and interesting. While reading about one woman’s difficulty in nursing, I wonder how we can best encourage benefits for its health and relationship benefits, but not stigmatize women who can’t do it. There are a lot of reasons for which women might not breastfeed, including that they work outside of the home and leave their kid with other childcare or that it simply doesn’t work out for them or their child. The term ‘Breast is Best’ certainly has a following—and for good reason—but we can’t tell women they aren’t “good mothers†if they can’t do it, especially if it is for economic reasons. Much like the article we read on the so-called ‘natural’ mothers, not everyone can have their baby around them at all times if they need to work and can’t bring their child with them. There has to be some sort of balance between praising breastfeeding or encouraging it and knowing when to just let it go if a woman is unable to do so. Articles like “Sucker†are written in accessible language and sort of tells women that they aren’t alone in their troubles. However, one issue I had with the article was although Huber only wrote about her own experiences, she didn’t go further into these issues of economics and privilege. It bothered me that she felt the need to explain why she was on assistance instead of just saying it. When I felt like I needed to go on food stamps last year, included in the paper work I had to pass in was proof that I was working. When I asked my employer to write how much I worked and send it to the Department of Transitional Assistance, he acted like I was destitute and wondered whether I needed extra hours. I felt like I needed to explain my entire financial situation to him to reassure him that I was doing fine, but not THAT bad. I’m not sure who Huber’s audience is, but implying that there is something wrong or shameful about assistance might alienate some of the women she should be writing to, even if it is common for us to vilify governmental benefits.
Lilly
Sonya Huber’s article “Sucker†was a real deal. I really enjoyed the reading and I felt like I gained a lot of knowledge about this whole process of painful yet fruitful ways of breastfeeding. I think in today’s society the changing role of the women has significantly impacted parenting practices, including breastfeeding. There could be many reasons why mothers these days don’t want to breastfeed their children. Some examples are: fear of ruining their figures, work, don’t want to be tied down, pain, embarrassment in public, medical reasons, breasts are too small or large etc.. Due to this whole negativity, sometimes women often forget the benefits behind breastfeeding, and that can be very devastating from time to time. Some mothers just don’t get the opportunity to nurse their babies right away after they give birth. I remember when my sister was born, she had jaundice and my mom couldn’t see her for more than a week and she never got a chance to breastfeed her. My mom had her when she was nearly 40 and due to her routine use of medications after the delivery, she was told by the doctors to not nurse my sister. My mom was very sad that she didn’t get the chance of having that special bond that mothers usually have with the babies when they latch onto their breasts. This immediate separation of my mother and my sister made my mom go through very sad emotions. I remember how they both had to go for several tests and procedures in the hospital for more than two weeks, till the doctor had discharged them. My mom felt very guilty that she couldn’t breastfeed my sister, when my brother and I were breastfed for several months. My sister was only fed by the formula and my mom always wanted to assure that her nutritional needs were met. And she would make extra effort to make sure that her and my sister bonded just fine. So, I think whether the breast milk or formula, feeding is an important time of connection between mother and baby. The decision to breastfeed or formula feed the baby is a very personal one.
Hot Chocolate
I enjoyed learning more about the actual process of breast feeding and was surprised to read such a painful yet entertaining experience such as Sonya Huber’s. I was surprised to read about the methods used back in the day compared to modern day and that problems with breast feeding were not investigated in detail until a few years back.
From my mother I had always known that breast feeding was a natural process which is beneficial for children. She had told me that it is the best way to protect newborns from early childhood disease, mainly because mother’s milk contains antibodies that help their babies fight infections. But what I never heard from her were painful experiences, frustration, or thoughts about selling her children like Sonya Huber had (haha!). I always thought that it’s a process a woman has to go through with her children and there aren’t many other options. I had heard about formulas but never paid much attention to the idea of it because it is not something I plan on doing myself.
I think it is interesting to read about different points of views on breast feeding a child in public. Some may consider it rude, shameful and disgusting while others believe it should be allowed. Personally, I would never do it only because I would feel much more comfortable at home. But I do feel sympathy for those mothers that have to stay home 24 hours a day and go crazy from mental and physical exhaustion.
I was excited to read that public health groups encourage breastfeeding and provide help through numerous resources. I did not know about this and I think it is a fantastic idea, especially for new mothers that may not know the advantages of breastfeeding.
TEASE
In reading the article, “Infant Agency and Its Implication for Breast-feeding Promotion in Brazilâ€, I was very surprised to find the low percentage of women who do not breastfeed their children. Eighty percent of mothers gave their newborns water or tea for the first week and then only fifty-eight percent feed their babies other milk in the first month, something I’ve never heard of. I’ve always thought that it was only natural to breastfeed your baby as soon as it is born until about six months of age. Unfortunately, many countries do not have access to information on breastfeeding. I think it’s wonderful that public health groups are encouraging breastfeeding and educating these countries of the benefits that breast milk provides for their babies.
The case about Flavia and her issues with breastfeeding her baby girl was very saddening. Flavia breast fed her baby for a couple of weeks then only fed her bottled water to “hydrate†her in the humid climate. Other than the lack of nutrients from the breast milk, are there any other effects of feeding her baby bottled water? Is this common in other countries? After feeding her baby bottled water, Flavia tried going back to breastfeeding but the baby would always refuse it and cause exhaustion between mother and baby. If this practice is common in these countries, could this explain the low breastfeeding rate?
After reading these articles, I learned a lot about breastfeeding that I didn’t know about before. I’ll be taking this information with me as I leave this class and hope to do my best in nurturing my own baby.
Mew
Breastfeeding was a topic I didn’t really know much about. Until I read the articles for this week, I had never understood how complex something such as breastfeeding could be. Many of the articles discussed difficulties in choosing to breastfeed and the different relationships that influence a woman’s decision to breastfeed. It is not just the woman who makes the decision, and it’s easy to see how family members and social pressures can influence her breastfeeding patterns. One influence I hadn’t thought about was the baby’s influence. The article discussing infant agency explained how many mothers in Brazil determine when and how much to breastfeed based on their baby. It explained how Western societies tend to diminish agency from the baby, declaring them dependent and incapable of being part of the breastfeeding decision making. In Brazil, however, many women attribute reasons for weaning their infant off breast milk to the response of the baby. It was the baby who chose to stop breastfeeding, not the mother. I find this very interesting to think about, because personally, I feel like infants are entirely dependent (perhaps I feel this way because I was raised in a society that portrays them in this manner), and though I could see how they may influence breastfeeding patterns, I’m not entirely convinced that they have as much agency in the matter as the Brazilian mothers claim they do.
Before reading the articles, I never really thought breastfeeding was such a big deal. I figured since many women breastfeed their babies at least for some amount of time, it was a simple, “natural,” easy task. I have seen family members nursing and nursing mothers in public before and it had seemed like such an easy task. Yet, many of the women in the articles explained how difficult breastfeeding can be. For some it may be painful, especially at first. It also requires around the clock attention, since a baby must breastfed every 2-3 hours. I feel like the act of breastfeeding is so glorified in our society and so naturalized, that negative experiences of breastfeeding are completely overlooked. I’m not suggesting that we portray a negative image of breastfeeding, but it certainly can be a difficult and time-consuming task.
Jazzy06
One aspect of Coral Wayland’s “Infant Agency and Its Implication for Breast-Feeding Promotion in Brazil†was the way in which breast-feeding seemed to be something which was forced upon new mothers. In addition to getting accustomed to becoming parents, these women were also under pressure to ensure that they were taking the ‘correct route’ with their babies. Sonya Huber further describes these sentiments in her article, “Sucker: Who in God’s Name Said Breast is Best?†Huber seems to be very unhappy with the results of breastfeeding her son, and takes the advice of other ‘knowledgeable’ women who advise her to continue breastfeeding, even though it is so uncomfortable to her.
Contrarily, Wayland describes many women in Brazil believing that the option of breastfeeding is one which must be made by both mothers and children, making it seem like a much more freeing idea. The fact that women feel forced to breastfeed their children seems to be a means of biopower. Women should not be forced into breastfeeding – or not breastfeeding – if they do not make the choice to on their own. By creating pressure in this area of mothering, others are essentially inhibiting a woman’s right to chose.
Especially for first-time mothers, the time immediately after childbirth can be very emotional, hectic, and scary, and women do not need to worry about whether or not they are breastfeeding their baby. I believe there are plenty of other aspects of becoming a new mother that are more important to ensure the health and happiness of both mother and child.
Phoenix
This week, I found the article titled, “Sucker: Who in God’s name says that Breast is Best” to be very interesting. There are many studies in existence that advocate breast feeding to be very beneficial for your baby. Like the article stated, breast-feeding is believed to give your baby a stronger immune system, a higher IQ, and more nutrients than formula. Many mothers like the author of the article obsess over the proper techniques they should use to care for their babies properly. They will read lots and lots of books to become mini-experts on the topic of breast-feeding to assure themselves that they are doing it properly.
In the Filipino culture, there is a lot of emphasis placed on nurturing and family. Which is why many women tend to breast-feed their babies rather than give them formula. I know for a fact that my brother and I were breast-fed by my mother, and I have seen many of my mom’s friends breast feed their new borns too. I have never seen any of my mom’s friends have a face of discomfort or pain like the author of the article was describing, which is why the article was very surprising to me. Personally, I agree with other people who have commented on their blogs that babies should be given their mother’s breast milk for as long as possible before moving on to formula or other kinds of food. But I wouldn’t think badly of anyone who chose to just give their babies formula to replace breast milk. Ultimately, the decision is up to to the mother because it is her body and she should be able to decide how she wants to raise her child.
Another point that I wanted to make was that even though we encourage women to breast feed their children, it’s interesting that we frown upon the public display of feeding their own child. When a baby needs to be fed, it needs to be fed — so why should women have to be so discreet about it? I recently heard that women who expose their breasts to feed a child can be labeled as a sex offender or be charged with indecent exposure? I don’t know if this is entirely true… but it definitely seems wrong.
CP
From other public health classes, particularly those with a global health focus, I felt I was fairly well aware of the major issues surrounding breastfeeding. I knew about the many positive health benefits from exclusive breast feeding, for both the child and the mother. And also that concerns surrounding family, society, work, etc. had the potential to be barriers to exclusive breastfeeding. The articles bring up two important issues that I had not given enough attention to.
First is the idea that the act of breastfeeding (or not) is such an integral part of the “performance” of being a mother, or at least I had not seen it in this way I before reading these articles. In particular, listening to the mothers’ stories and hearing not only how central breastfeeding was to their construction of motherhood, but how unprepared many of them felt to do it and their uncertainty as to their ability to provide adequate nutrition for their child when they were breastfeeding.
The second idea, and one I had never even remotely thought about was that of infant agency. I was totally unaware of some mothers’ experience of their infants being “willful social actors”.
What I get from these readings is that if I’m interested in improving women’s and infants’ health by promoting exclusive breast feeding, I need to do a much better job of understanding what women are experiencing and feeling with regard to breast feeding. To do this, I need to do a better job of listening to the stories of their experience of being a mother. I understand that this is a fairly simple point, but I feel that it is one that is regularly overlooked.
I learned a lot from this week’s readings! I grew up hearing that breastfeeding is the best way and the “right” way to feed your baby. However, I really had no idea of the physical and emotional difficulties of breastfeeding and how much of a 24 hour job it really is. Although I have never breastfed a baby, I empathized with Sonya Huber as she told of her breastfeeding experiences with her son Ivan. I appreciated how honest and realistic she was in her article, telling the reader about the feelings of hopelessness and frustration she felt toward her son and herself and how she had the desire to just go out and be able to feel like more than “just a pair of nipples”.
Huber also touched upon many other issues that undoubtedly affect all new mothers who are just learning how to breastfeed: the maddening amount of manuals and texts which try to teach the best way to hold your baby and help him “latch on”, the frustration when nurses and hospital staff ignore your pain or go against your desire and try to make you feed your baby formula when you clearly just want to breastfeed. I think actual classes and the help and advice of trained women who specialize in breastfeeding and maternal issues is most useful to new mothers who, realistically, shouldn’t be expected to just learn how to breastfeed from reading a book or looking at a picture.
I also thought that the article on breastfeeding women in Brazil was interesting because it brought up the point that it is possilble for infants to decide when they no longer want to breastfeed or, possibly, when they would rather try other tastes and foods. In this way, agency is given to infants, which suggests that “infants play an active role in making infant feeding decisions”. I think this is actually a positive idea because so many women often feel guilty or like bad mothers if they have trouble breastfeeding. However, I ultimately believe that babies should be given breastmilk for as long as possible because of the many health benefits associated with it. Whether this means committing to a breastfeeding regimen or using a breastpump, I believe the baby’s health should always be the biggest priority.
Sonya Huber’s article “Sucker†was a riot. What fond memories it brought back to me! NOT! Like the process of childbirth, the difficulties, pain, messiness and mental anguish of learning to breastfeed are pushed to the recesses of my memory where they are diminished into nothing but fond memories. I don’t know how I got through it some days. I wish I could say that I was surprised when the nurses in the hospital left the bottle of formula by her bedside, but I have read hundreds of delivery records that have followed the same type of tactics, and what they don’t tell you is that if a new born infant has a bottle it is very difficult for it to go back on to the breast as it uses a different part of its mouth to suck and a bottle is so much easier to get milk out of, the breast requires a little effort, at least to start with. Sonya Huber’s article was lovely, my favorite part is that she pushed through and did not give up though. I think women do tend to give up too easily, due to the pressures described by Marshall et al in “Being a Good Motherâ€. Peer pressure, family pressure and attitudes and medical or health workers input and attitudes have a strong affect on a woman when she is doing something like breastfeeding, especially for the first time. I like how the this article brought up the women’s confidence levels often….I think that lack of confidence and unsurety of our actions at such a crucial time (being the sole provider of nutrition for your baby….for 6 months! Oh, no big deal) play an enormous role in a women’s ability to sustain breastfeeding. Rather than reading all the breastfeeding manuals and books women should read these two articles, they a truthful without being negative but let you know although this is the best thing you can do for your baby it is hard, it hurts and you do feel like a cow (literally). I did/felt so many things from the Marshall article that I didn’t realize was “normalâ€, like calling those periods of intense nonstop breasting bouts growth spurts, taking the fact that I used to leak all over the place as a sign that production was good and an almost word to word perfect replication of the conversation Paula had with her mother-in-law with my own.
Breastfeeding is a topic that I have had very little exposure to. In my family breastfeeding is something that is just assumed will be done because it is what is natural. There was no discussion of the pain and frustration that is often associated with breastfeeding. This may be because most women in my family were able to stay home with their children so they didn’t have the added obstacle of figuring out how to go back to work and breastfeed. I liked how most of the articles talked about the difficulties of women working and their need for me time and balancing the pressure of breastfeeding to be a “good motherâ€. I liked how the articles went beyond the scope of breast milk is the best for infants and those who don’t breast feed are trying to harm their babies. A common theme in the articles was the idea that women felt that they knew what was best for their child and how some women faced a lot of pressure from family, friends, nurses, and society to conform to the “ideal†of breastfeeding. At first I wasn’t really sure if I agreed with the idea of infant agency, but the more I thought about the article, the more validity I started to see in the argument. It also made me realize some infants may not want to breastfeed and it’s not fair to punish the mother for their infant’s actions.
While breast feeding is possibly one of the best things that you can do for your child because of its numerous benefits I think breast feeding can change part of a woman’s identity. Topics such as larger breasts and leakage cause some women to change their relationships with their husbands. Breast feeding has declined in some countries. In China, for instance, one Chinese woman stated that she switched to formula after just six weeks. She had several reasons, including difficulty losing weight and her husband mentioned that a sex life would not be possible because breast feeding was too tiring. Although this woman agreed that breast feeding did make her tired a lot, she also mentioned that she thought because breast feeding was messy it made him uncomfortable. Does that mean it has to be the end of her sex life? Maybe directly after giving birth might not be the best timing. I’m not sure because I’ve never had children. But, when the partner not breast feeding makes this decision without consulting the other partner it seems as if they are just adding more pressure for the breast feeding mother to identify herself in a more sexual manner again, which in this woman’s case requires supplementing breast milk for formula and that may not be something that the mother is willing to do. I can imagine that making the transition after having a child can be very difficult and can only hope that both my partner and I will be comfortable transitioning back and forth between different roles that becoming a parent might complicate.
I’ve never thought of breastfeeding as something necessary to do for the health of a child or for any other reasons. My mother never breastfed me and I don’t think she ever intended to, and that has probably shaped how I feel about breastfeeding now. I agree that breastfeeding is best for an infant’s health, especially in places where there is a large risk of water being tainted that would make formula feeding possibly dangerous to a child, but I still don’t think of breastfeeding as being something that every woman should do, whether it is convenient for them or not. From the readings, it seemed that many women had trouble breastfeeding their baby and that breastfeeding took a large emotional toll on them. In some ways I think that breastfeeding isn’t worth the benefits for the baby if it is so difficult and discouraging to the mother. The health and well-being of the mother is very important as well, women shouldn’t be miserable or in pain just so they can provide extra immunity and nutrients to their baby. I have trouble seeing breastfeeding in any other way, and I think it is because I don’t ever want children and see them as a hassle and as something I wouldn’t want to deal with. This causes me to worry more about the mental and physical health of the mother as well as her ability to do what she chooses over the health of an infant. I recognize why the WHO would recommend breastfeeding, but I still think of it as a choice rather than as something that all of the mothers who faced trouble breastfeeding or getting their child to breastfeed, have to do. It seems like the pressure women receive to breast feed in some places makes the act even worse, while in other places the pressure to bottle feed or supplement breast milk with other liquids or foods creates a situation of anxiety for all mothers.
I was interested in the idea presented in the study on breastfeeding in Brazil, that babies have agency and can also shape the decision on whether or not to breastfeed. In the US we do think of infants as passive receptors of whatever way we choose to feed them, but from the experiences of the Brazilian women, it really did seem like babies were influencing the decision of the mother. You can’t breastfeed a baby that doesn’t want to breastfeed. It also made me wonder why recommendations about breast feeding don’t acknowledge what women should do if the child just won’t breastfeed. It seems like that lack of information made mothers feel like failures when their child wouldn’t do it unless they had social support that wasn’t from a medical background who could tell them that they had had the same experience. I think that this also proves that a biomedical viewpoint isn’t always the best and that the actual lived experiences of women are better and should be used to shape guidelines on breastfeeding.
One of the most nutritional and satisfying food for infants is the breast milk produced by a woman’s body. The ability for human body to produce this milk for infants is so amazing to me. What’s so interesting about it is that the milk that is produced has all the nutrients the infant needs to survive and it helps to build the infants immune system and the infant is less likely to have certain infectious diseases such as diarrhea, middle ear infections, and certain lung infections. Before I actually knew about breastfeeding and how good it is for the baby I thought that it was so odd and I heard from the media and also from other people how painful it is and how time consuming it can be to actually nurse a child. After hearing these horror stories my first instinct about breastfeeding is that I will never do it, I will get all the things I need for my baby from the formula. However after learning so much about its impact on the child and how important the nutrients in the breast milk is and how it benefits the baby more, I definitely reconsidered. Most of the discomfort that women feel during the beginning of the breastfeeding period is the fact that they are not doing it properly and that it is a skill that needs to be mastered before it becomes comfortable for both the mother and the infant. It is also a very close bonding experience for both mother and child where they share time together and the mother can feel a sense of pride being able to nourish their baby and give them everything that they need to survive. Society plays a role in giving a negative depiction of it. For example, when people see a mother breastfeeding their baby on a bus they automatically give negative looks and so forth because it is not something that our culture is used to seeing. The reading that I found interesting was the Infant Agency and Its Implication for Breast-Feeding Promotion in Brazil, which discussed how women in Brazil do not breastfeed because they feel that it is not what the infants want and how health promotion has been implemented for these women to know the importance of breastfeeding for the infant. Not so many women know a lot about breastfeeding and the importance of it so they feel that they do not need to do it. It is very important for women to know all the benefits and advantages that breastfeeding can do and ways to encourage more mothers to do so.
I have personally heard that breast milk is more beneficial for an infant because of the immunities that it will receive from the mother. But it is difficult for some infants to latch on and I believe that this is where formula should come in. If I were a mother, my first choice would be to breastfeed, but if complications arose, I would not hesitate to give my child formula because it would still need nutrients, no matter where they came from.
In talking with my mother about the topic, she was told the theory of the “Breast was Best†in all the classes she went to when she was pregnant with her three children (between 1985-1991). When I was younger, my mom used to joke that I was the smart one in the family because I breastfed longest. She said it was easier at night to breastfeed because you didn’t have to go to the kitchen to get a bottle and warm it up. But as we got older, it was more difficult because no one else could help feed us. Her and my dad couldn’t switch off each night with who got up with the baby because she had the breasts. When she decided to supplement her breast milk with formula, some other mothers made her feel sort of guilty.
The article Sucker was interested and understandable frustrating for the author. I can see where she felt like she was cheating on her child with a machine but no matter how the child is getting the milk, they are still receiving the nutrients. I have heard that there are a lot of classes on breastfeeding but not as much on pumping and for mothers looking to do everything “naturally,†pumping is a source of technology that they may not want to use.
In Sonya Huber’s article, “Sucker: Who in God’s name said breast is best?â€, I appreciated her detailed account of the absolute turmoil she encountered to breastfeed. I felt my heart pounding and my eyes wanted to read as fast as I could to find out, would the baby be able to receive the breast milk and would the mother be able to survive the pain and anguish of breastfeeding? She discusses the contradictions that occur in the United States where it is not acceptable for a woman to breastfeed in public, and yet they are subjected to a barrage of public judgments from health conscious strangers if they are choosing not to breastfeed, and instead formula feed. It struck me that women’s bodies are constantly under scrutiny and made an object of public discourse. I am reminded of the journalist in Zambia who took photos of a woman giving birth in her car because she was turned away from two hospitals because the hospitals couldn’t help her, was on trial for porn charges. Instead of looking at the failed public health system the journalist was charged with exposing photos of a birth and the government denounced the photos as pornographic. Then yesterday, after two months of battling in this case the journalist’s charges were dropped. The question arises, why are the natural biological processes of a women’s bodies sexualized and criminalized? Such that breastfeeding in public or a birth photos in the media could be seen as an inappropriate display of the female body and even pornographic?
The artile “Sucker” was a comical and straight forward portrayal of breast feeding. Not having any personal experience, this article certainly brought to my attention many feelings that new mothers have aside from the joy of holding their baby. I was unaware that breast feeding was not a natural reflex because I had heard about the rooting reflex and assumed that they went hand in hand. I can completely understand the frustrations and dissapointment that a new mother would have when they are unable to feed their baby. The extreme pain that this causes the new mother makes the situation much worse because they have already put their body through 9 months of turmoil and just when they thought it was over it became more intense. Also, it is a very bad double standard that women are encouraged to breast feed but are scrutinized when they do so in public. Although I do not want to see women breast feeding everywhere it is a completely natural thing to do. It is unreasonable that women be expected to stay at home all the time so that they can feed their newborns. There should be more public places that have a room for mothers to go to breastfeed. Even bathrooms at the mall have a changing table but no real comfortable and private place to breast feed. Having such rooms available would encourage new moms to leave their houses and do something other than sit on the couch and breast feed all day. This would make the mothers much happier and relieve some of the stress that they experience during the beginning of their childs life.
First, I found it very interesting that BFHI sponsored by UNICEF and WHO, was indeed so active globally. Two different spots in the word, with the same guidelines; guidelines that arguably have some faults. I would very much like to read these guidelines for myself. I hope we go over in them in class tomorrow.
Marshall, Godfrey and Renfrew’s research also interested me. I was surprised that they found most women deciding to breast feed in late pregnancy. In my family breast feeding is something older women talk about with younger women a great deal. But, my family tends to always have at least one baby and nursing mother at a time. So perhaps it just comes up a great deal, because it was visible. Regardless, growing up it was considered a given, if you have a baby, you nurse it. I remember being a little girl and pretending to nurse dolls. So I was surprised that moms-in-the-making, did not think of it right away. Nursing is up there on my top fears of “gross and painful things from baby making.â€(Feeling sick and getting big, labor, nursing, stretch marks.)
But on the other hand, I was not surprised in there findings that spouses affect a women’s choice on nursing or not to nurse. When you think about it, it’s one of the very first “parenting choices†people make. I can understand, why women would want there partner to be happy with the choice. Personally, my boyfriend’s mother has told me that she would like her grandchildren to be nursed. My parents have never said to me I must become a milk-maker, but I know they assume that I will. It’s their baby too, although it is my body, so I can see how tricky this question becomes for women who do not want to follow their families’ wishes.
The piece “Sucker†made me laugh. But it expressed also a deeper fear of mine.
(A fear that grows deeper very time my partner gets a raise, very time I think about graduation, very time someone I know has a baby ect.) WHAT IF I’M A BAD MOM! All the women in my family (God willing, this will continue) have been wonderful Mom’s right away. They all have their babies without drugs, vaginally, with a room full of their sisters, aunts and their mom, they all nurse, they all take pictures, they look great ect. What if I’m the first one of the girls to mess it up? Quite a bit of pressure. They all laugh at me, but this nursing business sounds tricky and there seems to be a large margin of where I could mess it up. Other women (like the ones we read about) have problems nursing both in actual nursing and in their lives around nursing. What I have to go to work and I can’t nurse! Would that make me a bad mom? (When I say this, my Aunts say “that is why you should stay home for the first few years! Like it’s that simple.) I agree with Huber and Marshall, Godfrey and Renfrew; that people and more importantly my family (I don’t care about the people part, I care about the family part a great deal) seem to believe that nursing is a whole lot better. I think people would find me neglectful, if I did not nurse. My mother nursed my sisters (me too, but I only remember my sisters) until they could walk, talk (Lauren used to say “Give me side!†when she wanted to be nursed) and play with me. Last year my middle sister took a fit about something, and my Mother whispered to my Dad “Do you think we should of nursed her longer? I did not nurse her as long as the others, because I got pregnant with Lauren.†At the time I thought it was funny for her to think that. But now, looking back, I’m beginning to wonder, just how important is nursing? And what if I mess it up?
The article “Sucker: who in god’s name said breast is best?†by Sonya Huber really caught my attention. I knew the basics about breast feeding before reading this, but after completing it I was completely shocked. It was almost sad as I felt so terrible for that poor woman trying to feed her baby, but having such difficulties. I actually cringed as I read about how sore and cut up she was from the breast feeding, and even advance preparation in “roughing up†her nipples did not make the pain any better when the real thing was happening. Her story makes me quite nervous about having my own child. I am scared to endure all of that pain and suffering just to feed my baby. I did not realize how difficult and complicated that process can be when everything does not go smoothly and perfectly, and so much patience as well as preparation is involved. It amazed me how much Huber did to prepare for breast feeding- classes, books, etc. I did not really consider that breast feeding can be so emotionally draining until I read this story. I was also amazed that the nurse and staff in the hospital did not do much to help Huber with the breast feeding after she gave birth. She was ignored a lot of the time, and was given formula, probably to shut her up. That is ridiculous. The easiest thing to do, as an outside perspective on the situation, would be to just feed the baby formula, but as the mother, I know breast milk is first priority, as I want my own baby to be breast fed. Huber should not feel bad about using a breast pump, because at least the baby is still getting the milk and nutrients needed from his mother. If latching on to the nipple is such a problem, as it was in Huber and Ivan’s case, then I do not see anything wrong with using a machine, as it has the same end result.
Also, It is incredible how much social judgment there are from such a natural and necessary process. It is kind of contradictory, because on the one hand people look down upon seeing a breast or open breast feeding out in public, but on the other hand, people also look down upon babies being fed formula through a bottle. Therefore, it’s a lose-lose situation. It’s hard to take your baby out in public without worrying about how and where you are going to feed it, and who might be watching or judging. Breast feeding is supposed to be the “best†way to feed your baby, but it really is an intense emotional and physical, as well as time-consuming, process to go through.
Before I started reading these articles my opinion on breast feeding was less than favorable. I grew up with my mom telling me that breast feeding wasn’t necessary. She hadn’t breastfed because she worked and so she thought it would have been too difficult to manage breastfeeding and working. I’d also heard stories that your breasts become saggy if you breast feed. Plus I felt like breastfeeding wasn’t really for working moms: how do you deal with leakage and such in the workplace? Should you use a pump? There just seemed to be too many gray areas.
The “Sucker” article was hilarious and also kind of scary. I didn’t know there was pain associated with breast feeding and that this “latching” issue discussed in all the articles was so difficult! I could see how a mom would be exasperated from something like that but would also want the closeness to their baby that comes from breastfeeding and also the health benefits associated with feeding your child breast milk.
The “being a good mother article” about managing breast feeding with other roles made the most sense to me. The women’s concerns seemed very valid. When I was reading about whether or not the women felt it was okay to supplement breast with bottle I thought back to the article on the Brazilian women. Overall I guess I became a bit more confused. Will a baby reject the breast after bottle feeding? I didn’t know there was so much involved in breast feeding and so much that could go wrong. It was kind of scary. But I agree that whether you choose to breast or bottle feed your child comes from your background and the sort of education you receive either way. I think that maybe I could breast feed my child (whenever that day comes) if I had a lot of social support to navigate things like leakage or a baby not being able to latch correctly. If there was better maternal health care in the United States maybe women would choose breast feeding more often for example if they had health professionals who could come to their house and help them navigate breast feeding.
Another aspect of the Brazil article I found interesting was the idea of infant agency. At first I thought babies don’t have agency and do whatever their parents do for them, however from this article I realized that infants can reject the breast and maybe even start to choose what they want. I don’t know how much agency I would attribute to an infant vs. the trepidation of the mother relating to breastfeeding. I feel like if a mother doesn’t feel comfortable breast feeding it shows in the way she acts while breastfeeding and an infant could read those signs and feel uncomfortable. Whereas if a mother felt more comfortable bottle feeding the infant would prefer being bottle fed because their mother’s body language would be more comforting.
Overall the impression I got from the readings was that breast feeding can be a very controversial choice for a mother to make. I’ve read articles about women getting in trouble in airports or malls for breastfeeding their child in public and I think that a very large problem is that there is not enough support for new mothers and people in the United States think breast feeding is kind of gross because we look at breasts as being very sexual instead of a source of nourishment. I definitely think that choosing to breast feed your child is very noble considering all the different issues a breast feeding mother faces however I also wouldn’t discount any mother for choosing to bottle feed their child. Being a new mother is hard enough without the medical community breathing down your back about breast feeding.
After having read the article Sucker, is when I decided to start my writing flow.
My focus is going to be on the title Sucker itself. It is a pun. Sucker can mean a few things, here are some definitions: a person or thing that sucks; a part of an animal adapted for sucking nourishment; to make a sucker of; fool; hoodwink, etc (Dictionary.com). Going by these definitions, we see that either a child can be what is sucking from the womans breast. By definition two, it is referring to animals, not humans. And by definition three, it is a derogatory word.
Therefore, the title “Sucker”, which one is it referring to? Sucker meaning that a baby is sucking on your breast for the “natural” way of breast feeding instead of giving the baby formula. But does it also mean that the woman is a sucker if she does bread feed? Or does it mean that she is a sucker because she does not breast feed, because in this article, ‘breast is best’.
There is much conflict about breast feeding and whether or not it should be done and if it is done, where can it be done, because a woman should not show her breast in public. If she does, it is indecent exposure, but it is also showing the other women who have children that do not breast feed, that that is what they should be doing, because it is such a loud “statement”. Breast feeding is looked at as the ‘natural’ way of feeding an infant, but as we have talked about in class, ‘natural’ should not even be used. Everyone has their own definition of natural, dictionary.com says: Natural: existing in or formed by nature; proper to the circumstances of the case; in conformity with the ordinary course of nature, etc. I think that natural should be the second definition listed, ‘proper to the circumstances of the case’. Therefore if this is the definition, then if the mother wants to breast feed or if the mother wants to formula feed, both ways are natural.
Breast feeding is something that is done by choice. Many studies have been done on the difference of the outcome of the child and there are many benefits to it that usually outweigh the downfall, but millions of people also formula feed and well, the world is still going around. The mother should not be considered a sucker, the only one that is the sucker is the baby, in the sense that they are sucking milk, whether it is from the breast or from the bottle, they are sucking, therefore, the sucker of the milk. It should not be used in any other form, not in a derogative way nor in a way that says one thing is better than the other. Freedom of choice.
I really enjoyed reading this week’s articles. Not to say I didn’t know about breastfeeding, but I didn’t know how important it was to breastfeed and all the controversies behind it. Breastfeeding is one of the most natural and beneficial acts a mother can do for her child. When mother’s breast feed their child a lot of things of going on. For one the baby gains a lot of nutrients from the mother’s milk which can prevent a number of childhood diseases. Breastfeeding is not only beneficial to the infant but also to the mother. I don’t think people realize how important breastfeeding is.
In the article “Infant Agent and Its Implication for Breast-Feeding Promotion in Brazil” there was a story about a mother in Brazil named Flavia who breastfed her daughter for about 6 weeks and on the 7th week she began to feed her small bottles of water. She said it was because her daughter was dehydrated and began to sweat. Her community health worker told her that breast milk keeps infants hydrated. Flavia continued to breast feed her daughter but then said her daughter did not want to be breast fed anymore. She began to bottle feed her daughter. And said her daughter knew it was time for a change. I understand that Flavia’s daughter is missing out on getting all the antibodies and nutrients from her mother’s breastmilk, but some people believe that if you don’t breast feed your child then they are missing out on the initial bond between you and the child. My friend asked me once if I would be upset if my child does not latch on to my breast when I’m breast feeding and I said OF COURSE NOT. There are many different ways a mother and child can bond. A mother bonds with her child when bottlefeeding, bathing, changing the diapers and just general playing around. The only disadvantage Flavia’s daughter has when her mother began to wean too early is because of the nutrients she is missing out on, but not the bonding. And also how much of an effect do you think these Public Health programs have on these mothers who wean early? It looks like in Brazil weaning early has become part of their culture. What I mean by this is that Flavia’s mother probably did it to her and her mother probably did it to her and so on. This is apart of their culture and is something that is common to them. What makes us think that trying to change that will be effective? Something to think about…
These weeks’ articles were eye opening. I, along with my brothers and sisters were breastfed for two years as was the case with almost everyone I knew around me. But I have to say my mother and sisters got up to six months off their jobs when they had children which made the choice easier for them. It was not uncommon to see mother’s breastfeed their babies in public transportation vehicles, places of worship and at social gatherings. Baby formula was expensive and only available to the upper class women. In my mind, children had no choice but to accept breast milk. As the “Infant Agency and Its implication for breast-Feeding Promotion in Brazil†article points out, breastfeeding is vital in low income countries where poor sanitation is the norm in some neighborhoods. I guess I was one of those people that viewed an infant as having no agency when it came to breastfeeding, but then again, I have not been around that many infants. I guess the thought of an infant just refusing breast milk when another option was unavailable did not cross my mind. Culturally, breastfeeding has been presented to me as the only option and something that infants adapt to. Not all women have the option of staying home with their children for as long as they would like and for those women, breastfeeding is not the best option. The article “sucker†was an interesting and candid read. Breastfeeding has always been presented as something that occurs without any problems but we see that it is not the case. Not every woman’ story is typical and articles like this can be very helpful to women that struggle with breastfeeding their infants.
The articles for this week were a bit of an eye opener. I learned quite a lot about breast-feeding. My mother enjoyed breast-feeding. She said it was such a special time between myself and her and she could have done it all day. Because of this, I grew up thinking breast-feeding was nothing like what the articles depicted.
At first I was skeptical when I read “Infant Agency and Its Implication for Breast-Feeding Promotion in Brazilâ€. I did not think infants had control over breast-feeding and could actually refuse it. However, as I continue to read the women’s stories, I was shocked. I did not realize the power a simple, tiny infant could have over breast-feeding. I grew up thinking that breast-feeding was simple and something that “just happenedâ€. Boy was I wrong!
Although the article “Sucker†seemed a little graphic, I found it to have a great balance of humor and seriousness. While Huber is able to laugh about it now, she really highlights the physical and emotional struggle of breast-feeding. I am glad I was able to read this article. I would never thought about having physical pain during breast feeding or going through the emotional battle of using a pump versus a breast. These articles really opened my views to all different experiences women have.
I really enjoyed this week’s readings and leant a lot. I have not been exposed to a lot about breastfeeding since mostly breast are viewed sexually. Most of our perceptions on breasts come from the media. After reading these articles I see breastfeeding from different viewpoints and see the struggles many women face with it. Since my childhood I have seen all the women in my family breastfeed. It was done discretely and was never discussed. It was just something that happened naturally after giving birth. I do feel women need to be more educated on breastfeeding all together. Up until now I was unaware of the pressures and difficulties of breastfeeding for mothers. It is very important and has a lot of benefits to the baby. One of the articles also mentions that some women in Brazil were unaware of the effects of giving their babies tea and water instead of their breast milk. I do not feel women are educated till they reach the state of breastfeeding to fully learn the importance and responsibility. There are a lot of pressures for women to breastfeed from society in general; this is not fair to mothers and infants who are not willing to receive breast milk. In this case agency is given to a newborn, which helps because women begin feeing guilty if they have any trouble breastfeeding. In my culture a women who does not breast feed is looked down upon but it is not as easy as it was back then. A lot more women have entered the workforce and do not have the time or luxury of breastfeeding or pumping milk for their child every 2-3 hours. I do feel a child should be breast fed as long as possible and in the future my baby’s health will come first.
I found “Sucker†by Sonya Huber to be quite entertaining and interesting. While reading about one woman’s difficulty in nursing, I wonder how we can best encourage benefits for its health and relationship benefits, but not stigmatize women who can’t do it. There are a lot of reasons for which women might not breastfeed, including that they work outside of the home and leave their kid with other childcare or that it simply doesn’t work out for them or their child. The term ‘Breast is Best’ certainly has a following—and for good reason—but we can’t tell women they aren’t “good mothers†if they can’t do it, especially if it is for economic reasons. Much like the article we read on the so-called ‘natural’ mothers, not everyone can have their baby around them at all times if they need to work and can’t bring their child with them. There has to be some sort of balance between praising breastfeeding or encouraging it and knowing when to just let it go if a woman is unable to do so. Articles like “Sucker†are written in accessible language and sort of tells women that they aren’t alone in their troubles. However, one issue I had with the article was although Huber only wrote about her own experiences, she didn’t go further into these issues of economics and privilege. It bothered me that she felt the need to explain why she was on assistance instead of just saying it. When I felt like I needed to go on food stamps last year, included in the paper work I had to pass in was proof that I was working. When I asked my employer to write how much I worked and send it to the Department of Transitional Assistance, he acted like I was destitute and wondered whether I needed extra hours. I felt like I needed to explain my entire financial situation to him to reassure him that I was doing fine, but not THAT bad. I’m not sure who Huber’s audience is, but implying that there is something wrong or shameful about assistance might alienate some of the women she should be writing to, even if it is common for us to vilify governmental benefits.
Sonya Huber’s article “Sucker†was a real deal. I really enjoyed the reading and I felt like I gained a lot of knowledge about this whole process of painful yet fruitful ways of breastfeeding. I think in today’s society the changing role of the women has significantly impacted parenting practices, including breastfeeding. There could be many reasons why mothers these days don’t want to breastfeed their children. Some examples are: fear of ruining their figures, work, don’t want to be tied down, pain, embarrassment in public, medical reasons, breasts are too small or large etc.. Due to this whole negativity, sometimes women often forget the benefits behind breastfeeding, and that can be very devastating from time to time. Some mothers just don’t get the opportunity to nurse their babies right away after they give birth. I remember when my sister was born, she had jaundice and my mom couldn’t see her for more than a week and she never got a chance to breastfeed her. My mom had her when she was nearly 40 and due to her routine use of medications after the delivery, she was told by the doctors to not nurse my sister. My mom was very sad that she didn’t get the chance of having that special bond that mothers usually have with the babies when they latch onto their breasts. This immediate separation of my mother and my sister made my mom go through very sad emotions. I remember how they both had to go for several tests and procedures in the hospital for more than two weeks, till the doctor had discharged them. My mom felt very guilty that she couldn’t breastfeed my sister, when my brother and I were breastfed for several months. My sister was only fed by the formula and my mom always wanted to assure that her nutritional needs were met. And she would make extra effort to make sure that her and my sister bonded just fine. So, I think whether the breast milk or formula, feeding is an important time of connection between mother and baby. The decision to breastfeed or formula feed the baby is a very personal one.
I enjoyed learning more about the actual process of breast feeding and was surprised to read such a painful yet entertaining experience such as Sonya Huber’s. I was surprised to read about the methods used back in the day compared to modern day and that problems with breast feeding were not investigated in detail until a few years back.
From my mother I had always known that breast feeding was a natural process which is beneficial for children. She had told me that it is the best way to protect newborns from early childhood disease, mainly because mother’s milk contains antibodies that help their babies fight infections. But what I never heard from her were painful experiences, frustration, or thoughts about selling her children like Sonya Huber had (haha!). I always thought that it’s a process a woman has to go through with her children and there aren’t many other options. I had heard about formulas but never paid much attention to the idea of it because it is not something I plan on doing myself.
I think it is interesting to read about different points of views on breast feeding a child in public. Some may consider it rude, shameful and disgusting while others believe it should be allowed. Personally, I would never do it only because I would feel much more comfortable at home. But I do feel sympathy for those mothers that have to stay home 24 hours a day and go crazy from mental and physical exhaustion.
I was excited to read that public health groups encourage breastfeeding and provide help through numerous resources. I did not know about this and I think it is a fantastic idea, especially for new mothers that may not know the advantages of breastfeeding.
In reading the article, “Infant Agency and Its Implication for Breast-feeding Promotion in Brazilâ€, I was very surprised to find the low percentage of women who do not breastfeed their children. Eighty percent of mothers gave their newborns water or tea for the first week and then only fifty-eight percent feed their babies other milk in the first month, something I’ve never heard of. I’ve always thought that it was only natural to breastfeed your baby as soon as it is born until about six months of age. Unfortunately, many countries do not have access to information on breastfeeding. I think it’s wonderful that public health groups are encouraging breastfeeding and educating these countries of the benefits that breast milk provides for their babies.
The case about Flavia and her issues with breastfeeding her baby girl was very saddening. Flavia breast fed her baby for a couple of weeks then only fed her bottled water to “hydrate†her in the humid climate. Other than the lack of nutrients from the breast milk, are there any other effects of feeding her baby bottled water? Is this common in other countries? After feeding her baby bottled water, Flavia tried going back to breastfeeding but the baby would always refuse it and cause exhaustion between mother and baby. If this practice is common in these countries, could this explain the low breastfeeding rate?
After reading these articles, I learned a lot about breastfeeding that I didn’t know about before. I’ll be taking this information with me as I leave this class and hope to do my best in nurturing my own baby.
Breastfeeding was a topic I didn’t really know much about. Until I read the articles for this week, I had never understood how complex something such as breastfeeding could be. Many of the articles discussed difficulties in choosing to breastfeed and the different relationships that influence a woman’s decision to breastfeed. It is not just the woman who makes the decision, and it’s easy to see how family members and social pressures can influence her breastfeeding patterns. One influence I hadn’t thought about was the baby’s influence. The article discussing infant agency explained how many mothers in Brazil determine when and how much to breastfeed based on their baby. It explained how Western societies tend to diminish agency from the baby, declaring them dependent and incapable of being part of the breastfeeding decision making. In Brazil, however, many women attribute reasons for weaning their infant off breast milk to the response of the baby. It was the baby who chose to stop breastfeeding, not the mother. I find this very interesting to think about, because personally, I feel like infants are entirely dependent (perhaps I feel this way because I was raised in a society that portrays them in this manner), and though I could see how they may influence breastfeeding patterns, I’m not entirely convinced that they have as much agency in the matter as the Brazilian mothers claim they do.
Before reading the articles, I never really thought breastfeeding was such a big deal. I figured since many women breastfeed their babies at least for some amount of time, it was a simple, “natural,” easy task. I have seen family members nursing and nursing mothers in public before and it had seemed like such an easy task. Yet, many of the women in the articles explained how difficult breastfeeding can be. For some it may be painful, especially at first. It also requires around the clock attention, since a baby must breastfed every 2-3 hours. I feel like the act of breastfeeding is so glorified in our society and so naturalized, that negative experiences of breastfeeding are completely overlooked. I’m not suggesting that we portray a negative image of breastfeeding, but it certainly can be a difficult and time-consuming task.
One aspect of Coral Wayland’s “Infant Agency and Its Implication for Breast-Feeding Promotion in Brazil†was the way in which breast-feeding seemed to be something which was forced upon new mothers. In addition to getting accustomed to becoming parents, these women were also under pressure to ensure that they were taking the ‘correct route’ with their babies. Sonya Huber further describes these sentiments in her article, “Sucker: Who in God’s Name Said Breast is Best?†Huber seems to be very unhappy with the results of breastfeeding her son, and takes the advice of other ‘knowledgeable’ women who advise her to continue breastfeeding, even though it is so uncomfortable to her.
Contrarily, Wayland describes many women in Brazil believing that the option of breastfeeding is one which must be made by both mothers and children, making it seem like a much more freeing idea. The fact that women feel forced to breastfeed their children seems to be a means of biopower. Women should not be forced into breastfeeding – or not breastfeeding – if they do not make the choice to on their own. By creating pressure in this area of mothering, others are essentially inhibiting a woman’s right to chose.
Especially for first-time mothers, the time immediately after childbirth can be very emotional, hectic, and scary, and women do not need to worry about whether or not they are breastfeeding their baby. I believe there are plenty of other aspects of becoming a new mother that are more important to ensure the health and happiness of both mother and child.
This week, I found the article titled, “Sucker: Who in God’s name says that Breast is Best” to be very interesting. There are many studies in existence that advocate breast feeding to be very beneficial for your baby. Like the article stated, breast-feeding is believed to give your baby a stronger immune system, a higher IQ, and more nutrients than formula. Many mothers like the author of the article obsess over the proper techniques they should use to care for their babies properly. They will read lots and lots of books to become mini-experts on the topic of breast-feeding to assure themselves that they are doing it properly.
In the Filipino culture, there is a lot of emphasis placed on nurturing and family. Which is why many women tend to breast-feed their babies rather than give them formula. I know for a fact that my brother and I were breast-fed by my mother, and I have seen many of my mom’s friends breast feed their new borns too. I have never seen any of my mom’s friends have a face of discomfort or pain like the author of the article was describing, which is why the article was very surprising to me. Personally, I agree with other people who have commented on their blogs that babies should be given their mother’s breast milk for as long as possible before moving on to formula or other kinds of food. But I wouldn’t think badly of anyone who chose to just give their babies formula to replace breast milk. Ultimately, the decision is up to to the mother because it is her body and she should be able to decide how she wants to raise her child.
Another point that I wanted to make was that even though we encourage women to breast feed their children, it’s interesting that we frown upon the public display of feeding their own child. When a baby needs to be fed, it needs to be fed — so why should women have to be so discreet about it? I recently heard that women who expose their breasts to feed a child can be labeled as a sex offender or be charged with indecent exposure? I don’t know if this is entirely true… but it definitely seems wrong.
From other public health classes, particularly those with a global health focus, I felt I was fairly well aware of the major issues surrounding breastfeeding. I knew about the many positive health benefits from exclusive breast feeding, for both the child and the mother. And also that concerns surrounding family, society, work, etc. had the potential to be barriers to exclusive breastfeeding. The articles bring up two important issues that I had not given enough attention to.
First is the idea that the act of breastfeeding (or not) is such an integral part of the “performance” of being a mother, or at least I had not seen it in this way I before reading these articles. In particular, listening to the mothers’ stories and hearing not only how central breastfeeding was to their construction of motherhood, but how unprepared many of them felt to do it and their uncertainty as to their ability to provide adequate nutrition for their child when they were breastfeeding.
The second idea, and one I had never even remotely thought about was that of infant agency. I was totally unaware of some mothers’ experience of their infants being “willful social actors”.
What I get from these readings is that if I’m interested in improving women’s and infants’ health by promoting exclusive breast feeding, I need to do a much better job of understanding what women are experiencing and feeling with regard to breast feeding. To do this, I need to do a better job of listening to the stories of their experience of being a mother. I understand that this is a fairly simple point, but I feel that it is one that is regularly overlooked.