Book Review: "Mother's Milk: Breastfeeding Controversy in American Culture" by Bernice Hausman

Synopsis: (via Amazon.com)

    Mother's Milk examines why nursing a baby is an ideologically charged experience in contemporary culture. Drawing upon medical studies, feminist scholarship, anthropological literature, and an intimate knowledge of breastfeeding itself, Bernice Hausman demonstrates what is at stake in mothers' infant feeding choices--economically, socially, and in terms of women's rights. Breastfeeding controversies, she argues, reveal social tensions around the meaning of women's bodies, the authority of science, and the value of maternity in American culture. A provocative and multi-faceted work, Mother's Milk will be of interest to anyone concerned with the politics of women's embodiment.

Review:
    The author described the conflicting attitudes of breastfeeding advocates and feminist critics very well, highlighting how this poses a problem for everyday women and leads to "Mommy Wars", something very topical in today's media. According to Hausman, the only vocal breastfeeding advocate group is La Leche League, whose continuing ephasis on "immersion mothering" and not working outside the house is off-putting and unrealistic for many families. Conversely, feminist critics, who so readily discuss pregnancy and birth and fight for better treatment of laboring mothers, do not support breastfeeding, as it serves to encourage domesticity and exacerbate the gender differences between parents. When these two groups fight against each other, there is no one fighting for the everyday nursing mother (especially one who works outside the home). The author (eventually) made an excellent point about bridging the gap between breastfeeding advocates and feminist critics by encouraging "Health Advocacy" instead of breastfeeding advocacy. This perspective will help to keep the health benefits of breastfeeding part of the discussion, encourage practical advice, and reduce the judgement of women who choose not to breastfeed. Hausman quotes from Penny Van Esterik's Beyond the Breast-Bottle Controversy, and I think this nicely sums up the goals most breastfeeding advocates and educators: 

"The trajectory goal becomes not to have every woman breastfeed her infant, but to create conditions in individuals, households, communities, and nations so that every woman could. The first step is to create conditions that make breastfeeding possible, successful, and valued in a given society."

    Hausman touched on many different points regarding how women make the decision to breastfeed or not, including physician authority, popular texts for pregnant women, formula marketing, mass understanding of evolutionary theory, and race and class. Her overall theme seemed to be that women do not make this decision "in a vacuum", that the constant collision of culture, medical expertise, and personal beliefs make this decision so much more complicated that "what should I feed my child?" I appreciated her respect for women who choose to formula-feed, stating that they choose to not breastfeed not because they are uneducated or ignorant, but because they have taken into consideration their own circumstances and decided it's better for themselves, their baby, and their family to formula-feed. Hausman also made a nice attempt to deconstruct the bottle-feeding paradigm that women see every day. Her analysis of pregnancy books and formula marketing was eye-opening and a concrete example of how culture affects breastfeeding choices.

    While the author's overall point was well-taken, I found her tone and writing style very difficult to read, especially in the early chapters. It took until the end of the over 200-page book to understand her overall message; her initial thesis was written in such abstract terms, it took a complete deconstruction of the sentence to understand her point -- and even then, it did not seem to match her overall argument once I had finished the book. She claimed the book was for mothers (as well as for doctors, educators, advocates, etc.), but I would be surprised if most mothers would find her style accessible. The book seemed aimed more for educators and advocates than for breastfeeding mothers. As she states herself, mothers need practical advice and real social support from doctors, other mothers, and the workforce; mothers do not need ideology. As this book is mainly focused on discussions of culture and the ideological meaning of women's bodies, it seems as the book itself is an example of what would be unhelpful to an everyday nursing mother.

Hausman clearly did her research on feminist theory and breastfeeding benefits; however she seems to only site a few sources. She also has a clear bias towards La Leche League, and implies that they are the only breastfeeding advocates out there. It would have been nice to see an analysis of other advocates' texts as well. Also, while the author made a good attempt at an overall flow of the book (chapter one discussed public media, chapter two physicians, chapter three texts for parents, etc.), there were times when her discussions seemed random and not fitting to the chapter as a whole (for example, the discussion of the sexuality of motherhood and breastfeeding in the chapter about physicians, authority, and scientific motherhood seemed, while interesting on its own, a bit out of place).

Overall, this book was helpful to me as an educator and breastfeeding advocate, but it would not serve to help a nursing mother feed her baby or even help her to make an informed decision about feeding, as the book is so dense and difficult to digest.

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