Is Breast Best?: Taking on the Breastfeeding Experts and the New High Stakes of Motherhood
Why has breastfeeding re-asserted itself over the last twenty years, and why are the government, the scientific and medical communities, and so many mothers so invested in the idea? In Is Breast Best? Joan B. Wolf challenges the widespread belief that breastfeeding is medically superior to bottle-feeding. Despite the fact that breastfeeding has become the ultimate expression of maternal dedication, Wolf writes, the conviction that breastfeeding provides babies unique health benefits and that formula feeding is a risky substitute is unsubstantiated by the evidence. In accessible prose, Wolf argues that a public obsession with health and what she calls “total motherhood” has made breastfeeding a cause célèbre, and that public discussions of breastfeeding say more about infatuation with personal responsibility and perfect mothering in America than they do about the concrete benefits of the breast.

Parsing the rhetoric of expert advice, including the recent National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign, and rigorously questioning the scientific evidence, Is Breast Best? uncovers a path by which a mother can feel informed and confident about how best to feed her thriving infant—whether flourishing by breast or by bottle.

"1100313086"
Is Breast Best?: Taking on the Breastfeeding Experts and the New High Stakes of Motherhood
Why has breastfeeding re-asserted itself over the last twenty years, and why are the government, the scientific and medical communities, and so many mothers so invested in the idea? In Is Breast Best? Joan B. Wolf challenges the widespread belief that breastfeeding is medically superior to bottle-feeding. Despite the fact that breastfeeding has become the ultimate expression of maternal dedication, Wolf writes, the conviction that breastfeeding provides babies unique health benefits and that formula feeding is a risky substitute is unsubstantiated by the evidence. In accessible prose, Wolf argues that a public obsession with health and what she calls “total motherhood” has made breastfeeding a cause célèbre, and that public discussions of breastfeeding say more about infatuation with personal responsibility and perfect mothering in America than they do about the concrete benefits of the breast.

Parsing the rhetoric of expert advice, including the recent National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign, and rigorously questioning the scientific evidence, Is Breast Best? uncovers a path by which a mother can feel informed and confident about how best to feed her thriving infant—whether flourishing by breast or by bottle.

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Is Breast Best?: Taking on the Breastfeeding Experts and the New High Stakes of Motherhood

Is Breast Best?: Taking on the Breastfeeding Experts and the New High Stakes of Motherhood

by Joan B. Wolf
Is Breast Best?: Taking on the Breastfeeding Experts and the New High Stakes of Motherhood

Is Breast Best?: Taking on the Breastfeeding Experts and the New High Stakes of Motherhood

by Joan B. Wolf

Paperback(New Edition)

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Overview

Why has breastfeeding re-asserted itself over the last twenty years, and why are the government, the scientific and medical communities, and so many mothers so invested in the idea? In Is Breast Best? Joan B. Wolf challenges the widespread belief that breastfeeding is medically superior to bottle-feeding. Despite the fact that breastfeeding has become the ultimate expression of maternal dedication, Wolf writes, the conviction that breastfeeding provides babies unique health benefits and that formula feeding is a risky substitute is unsubstantiated by the evidence. In accessible prose, Wolf argues that a public obsession with health and what she calls “total motherhood” has made breastfeeding a cause célèbre, and that public discussions of breastfeeding say more about infatuation with personal responsibility and perfect mothering in America than they do about the concrete benefits of the breast.

Parsing the rhetoric of expert advice, including the recent National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign, and rigorously questioning the scientific evidence, Is Breast Best? uncovers a path by which a mother can feel informed and confident about how best to feed her thriving infant—whether flourishing by breast or by bottle.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781479838769
Publisher: New York University Press
Publication date: 07/19/2013
Series: Biopolitics , #4
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 258
Product dimensions: 5.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Joan B. Wolf is Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at Texas A&M University and author of Harnessing the Holocaust: The Politics of Memory in France.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface: Why Breastfeeding?
1 Monitoring Mothers
A Recent History of Following the Doctor’s Orders
2 The Science
Does Breastfeeding Make Smarter, Happier, and Healthier Babies?
3 Minding Your Own (Risky) Business
Health and Personal Responsibility
4 From the Womb to the Breast
Total Motherhood and Risk-Free Children
5 Scaring Mothers
The Government Campaign for Breastfeeding
6 Conclusion
Whither Breastfeeding?
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Beautifully written, powerfully argued. . . . Challenges the science prescription that all infants must be breastfed.”
-Linda Blum,author of At the Breast: Ideologies of Breastfeeding and Motherhood in the Contemporary United States

-,

"Instead of disputing the science about the chemical makeup of breast milk . . . she (Wolf) posits that the benefits most people associate with breast-feeding studies cannot be separated from the fact that mothers who breast-feed may be more attuned to health and may take more precautions about hygene . . . Wolf rightfully contends that in the government's and acvocate's zeal to increase the numbers of breast-fed babies, they have vastly discounted the harsh realities of breast-feeding in a modern world"-Tara A. Trower,Statesman.com

"Wolf confronts the stereotypes of ideal motherhood and explains how public health campaigns and advocacy groups have relied on flawed infant-feeding research to exaggerate any health risks associated with using infant formula."-Texas A&M University News,tamunews.tamu.edu

“It is the all-encompassing nature of breast-feeding that is the crux of the most interesting part of Wolf's book. She makes a compelling argument that we are a risk-averse culture that has lost all perspective when it comes to risk assessment and our health, and this tendency is particularly pervasive on the issue of breast-feeding… In her book, Wolf rightfully contends that in the government's and advocates' zeal to increase the numbers of breast-fed babies, they have vastly discounted the harsh realities of breast-feeding in a modern world.”-Tara A. Trower,Statesmen.com

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