ABSTRACT
Parents face a raft of often contradictory advice on how best to feed and care for their newborn infants, a process that begins early in pregnancy, if not before. Mothers in particular must, during the intense and exhausting period following childbirth, negotiate the contradictory pressures of health promotion campaigns to increase rates of breastfeeding and broader cultural norms which, in the developed world, usually distinguish maternity from sexuality (Young, 1998) and subject women’s sexualized bodies to critical scrutiny in ways that are sharply mediated by key social divisions, not least those of class, “race,” age, and ethnicity. It should come as no surprise then to discover that methods of infant feeding (i.e., whether an infant is fed breast milk and/or infant formula) are sharply distinguished to refl ect these broader social divisions (e.g., Hamlyn, Brooker, Oleinikova, & Wands, 2000). For those learning to breastfeed, they also must master what can be a technically diffi cult and physically painful skill (Oakley, 1986, p. 174).1 Furthermore, offi cial efforts to promote health through a campaign of public persuasion that “breast is best” often concentrate on educational strategies at the cost of providing more substantive support which would, for example, enable women to breastfeed without compromising their ability to inhabit public spaces or their paid employment entitlements (Carter, 1995; Galtry, 2000).
