ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the social and cultural influences that exist within the UK that might help or hinder breastfeeding. Around the world women breastfeed without question. There is a natural assumption that the breast will be offered to the newborn infant and that breast milk will nourish the infant until weaning. It is useful to consider breastfeeding within a historical context in order to understand the prevailing attitudes towards infant feeding. Giving an infant nourishment other than their mother's milk is not a new phenomenon. Historical records suggest that infants were commonly given foodstuffs such as bread and broth as a complement to or substitute for breast milk. The breastfeeding experience is not an isolated event but one that exists in a social context. Although the policy discourse encourages the notion that 'successful breastfeeding' equates to following the guidelines, it is important to gauge what constitutes success from the woman's perspective.
