Dependence on breast feeding

Breastfeeding as female servitude
Social stigma of breast-feeding

Nature

In the last decade, breastfeeding has regained its lost popularity and is making a striking comeback in the Western world. Difficulties arise due to the fact that the comeback is concurrent with women's liberation from the household and embarking upon career; breastfeeding serves to hinder a woman's total emancipation for she is the only person capable of performing this task.

Background

Jean-Jacques Rousseau stimulated a similar fad for breastfeeding during the 1800's, as one aspect of his popularization of the 'uncivilized natural man'. Even French aristocrats who had always used wetnurses responded to his portrayal of primitive satisfactions and the pleasant warmth of mothers' milk.

Incidence

In the Western world, it is well-educated mothers who are returning to this age-old tradition. A 1980 USA survey showed that 70% of graduate mothers breastfed their children, as opposed to only 25% of mothers with nine or fewer years of schooling.

Claim

Breastfeeding maintains a one-to-one relationship between mother and child for an overly extended amount of time, thus keeping the child dependent upon the mother when it should be developing other relationships; and keeping the mother dependent upon her child when she, too, should be developing outside interests.

Breastfeeding is usually not run at scheduled intervals making it virtually impossible for a woman to have a full-time career outside the home.

In addition, breastfeeding may be a contributory cause to sagging breasts, which a woman and others could conceive of as fading beauty.

There is a taboo in many Western countries against breast-feeding in public. If the woman chooses to feed her baby in the midst of company, she may be found to be offensive.

Breastfeeding is messier and less efficient than bottlefeeding.

Substances such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), dioxins and other potentially dangerous products remain in body tissues for several decades and could be passed to newborn babies in milk during breastfeeding.

Counter-claim

Breastmilk is superior to infant formula, offers natural immunological defences, and creates a warm emotional bond between mother and child. In the developing world, breast-feeding is a natural safety mechanism against the worst effects of poverty.

There is no taboo against breast-feeding in most countries where children are viewed as being very important. For example, in countries with strict Muslim codes where women may have difficulty travelling alone, nursing in public is accepted.