The Politics of Breastfeeding

One of my most surprising and revelatory reads ever! I stumbled upon it and never would have imagined including something like this on my list of favourite books.

It brilliantly shows how what we think of as a straightforward and self-contained subject – infant feeding – is actually a political question interconnected with numerous issues: gender, labour, economics, global politics, society, and community. It should be required reading regardless of whether or not you’re a parent, and regardless of how you choose to feed your baby.

This was the book that really opened my eyes to the power of marketing, and the impact this can have on the way babies are fed – in all countries of the world. It’s an absolute classic – a seminal work. It showed me how the infant formula industry (and increasingly the baby food industry in general) uses any tactics it can to influence and distort the dialogue around infant feeding. I was especially horrified to learn how, as a health visitor and midwife, I could unwittingly be used to promote products and practices that had the power to undermine… show more.