ABSTRACT
In the order of nature, breastfeeding necessarily succeeds birth as it delivers the nutrients that are vital to a newborn’s growth and development, establishing and facilitating the emotional and psychological bond that unites the mother with her infant. For French mothers, feeding an infant or young child is simultaneously not only feeding but also teaching him/her to “eat in the French style.” “Breastmilk” mothers and “artificial milk” mothers differ markedly in terms of the schema they use to think about the quality of both types of milk and which gives each of their discussions a remarkable coherence. If the nutritional dimension of perinatal feeding appears to be essential in the discourse of mothers, its educational function is at the heart of maternal concerns. The question of the transmission of taste is also a major issue of perinatal feeding and the strategies used by French mothers to expand the sensory experience of the newborn are numerous.
