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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

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Original poster

The politics of Breastfeeding

44 replies

FrozenNorth · 14/08/2010 09:32

Has anyone read this book? just getting started on it and would love to discuss it with anyone who's familiar with it. Enjoying it hugely already though the bits about Nestle's antics in deprived countries are already sending my blood pressure through the roof

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Original poster

FrozenNorth · 14/08/2010 09:35

PS - for anyone who's curious what I'm talking about, here it is

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Rubykippers · 14/08/2010 14:21

Hi frozen, just reading it now while ds has a nap. Gabrielle palmer sure is a hardcore bf advocate!! I got a bit teary at the pic on p.39 of that lady bottle feeding her daughter. Am up to chapter 10. Am recommending this book to pregnant friends who aren't sure about bf. It really stresses the importance of it.

hellymelly · 14/08/2010 14:24

I really enjoyed the book and it did change my perception of formula vs breastfeeding.I really feel now that if you can bf,then you should.Whereas I was probably a bit less bothered either way before reading it.

belgo · 14/08/2010 14:24

It's a good book for all women to read, bfing or not, for it's historical and cultural content. It's fascinating the way women and children have lived over the centuries. It's heavy going though to read, and I'm having a hiatus half way through. I'll pick it up again some point soon.

theboobmeister · 14/08/2010 22:46

It's brilliant.

Amazing it gets so little notice in the mainstream press. I suspect that if you replaced the word "breastfeeding" in the title with "globalisation", it would have got a lot more publicity. Sigh

MumNWLondon · 14/08/2010 22:52

I read it and would love to discuss on this thread! Just gave it to my SIL though, she's due any minute!

tabouleh · 15/08/2010 00:06

The guardian did an article and webchat with her a couple of months ago and there was a MN webchat a few months ago.

I had a quick look at an old edition from the library but I'm thinking of buying a new edition.

Original poster

FrozenNorth · 15/08/2010 00:35

Brilliant, I'm glad to find other people have read / are reading it. It's the kind of book that I really want to discuss and absolutely no-one I know has heard of it. Agreed that it should have received a lot more notice in the mainstream press and v sad it didn't. I think I'm going to try to read a couple of chapters whilst feeding DD2 and DD1 is asleep tomorrow. For those of you that have finished / are some way through the book, which bit was most memorable / inspiring / surprising (if any of these) to you?

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foxytocin · 15/08/2010 00:42

I read it last summer. Would love to read it again.

I saw Gabrielle Palmer at the ABM Conference last year in Leicester. What an amazing woman. What an inspiration and I don't say that glibly either. Definitely a heroine of mine.

weasle · 15/08/2010 01:01

i read this book last year. i thought it was amazing. i struggle to put into words how important and inspiring i found it. i have been irritating lots of people to try to get them to read it and bought several copies for friends so i could discuss it with them! i agree it is disappointing that it has not been picked up by mainsteam media more.

it has made me firmly believe that natural term bf is normal and not weird in a historical and international context. and also changed what i think about motherhood - i think lots about the mother in south america described at the end, rocking her 6 year old to sleep. and it made me very, very angry. but i never found it heavy going.

i also liked reading the spirit level book but that was a bit heavier going.

StealthPolarBear · 15/08/2010 07:39

I ahve read it twice, and thought it was brilliant, but my short term memory is so poor that I will have to get it back from my friend before I can discuss anything :o
I seem to remember I had questions (or bits I wanted to talk about) at the time and started a thread about it...

MrsKitty · 15/08/2010 08:04

I've read most of it, but like SPB have a rubbish memory for these things...The one part that always does stick in my mind, and makes me really is the part where she talks about certain hospitals in the past being designed to make BF more difficult by the positioning of the ward/nursery.

Been meaning to finish the last few chapters, but have the concentration span of a goldfish at the moment .

Morloth · 15/08/2010 10:20

Made me angry, so very angry.

My copy is out doing the rounds at the moment, more people should read it and get angry.

ThatScrotumCat · 15/08/2010 13:43

I`m currently reading it for the second time, what an amazing, inspiring,thought-provoking book.

Ive far more empowered now when people question why I am still` breastfeeding my toddler.

jemjabella · 15/08/2010 16:03

I've read 98% of it - really must finish it as a mate wants to borrow it.

missjackson · 15/08/2010 22:00

It's such a great book, and completely inspiring. I wish more of my friends would read it but I find faces go blank when I tell them the title. The webchat with her on MN was brilliant too. I just hope someone else picks up campaigning where she left off.

Original poster

FrozenNorth · 21/08/2010 14:17

I am just coming to the end of the book now - had to stop reading it just before bed as it was making me too angry to sleep. I really really wish there was a way of publicising it more widely - it is such a life-changing book, and I really do mean that sincerely. It has changed an awful lot about the way I think, and I've realised like never before how globally significant the marketing of breastmilk substitutes has been. Sobering, sobering reading. I'm thinking of setting it as required reading on the Paediatric Health Psychology course I co-teach.

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RubyBuckleberry · 16/09/2010 11:38

I am at the start and it is already changing my outlook even more on the whole BF/FF thing.

This should be given to every pregnany mother instead of that NHS book thing haha.

yosushi · 16/09/2010 11:42

I love the book - I started and kept breastfeeding because of that book. It was the reason I kept going.

yosushi · 16/09/2010 11:47

Wow - I have just read that the author has retired.

I really think I would have possibly given up - reading that book was like switching on a light bulb.

5DollarShake · 16/09/2010 12:58

I've ordered this from Amazon - can't wait to get started on it.

MoonFaceMama · 16/09/2010 20:39

i've finally got hold of it from the library.

rubyslippers · 16/09/2010 20:43

I have it and it's on loan to my best friend

I know this sounds faintly ridiculous but it politicized breastfeeding for me

It also spurred me on with feeding my DD

It is also profoundly depressing

CheckingCheques · 16/09/2010 21:00

Is the bewer one better? 2009 edition rather than 1988

BaronessBomburst · 17/09/2010 00:21

Am reading it now, although it's taking a while as only get about 10 mins per day if and when DS falls asleep on my lap after a feed. Keep reading quotes to my mum, who wants to borrow it, and my DH who has now become a staunch advocater of BF.

But rubyslippers is right - it is profoundly depressing.

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