ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Carol Bartle discusses the barriers to optimal infant and young child feeding through the lens of sustainability. Breastfeeding is located within a complex political field in which corporations, governments, transnational agencies, non-governmental organisations and action groups, health practitioners and individual public commentators all have stakes. While the benefits of breastfeeding for women, babies and the planet are indisputable, it has been increasingly displaced and replaced by the use of manufactured breast milk substitutes. This chapter outlines the strategies used by the formula industry to expand their markets, silence public opposition and capture government and transnational agencies. It also identifies the obstacles that social inequalities and climate emergencies place on women’s endeavours to breastfeed. The solution advocated is for more governmental and collective responsibility to protect breastfeeding rather than blaming individual women who use formula to feed their babies.
