Reclaiming Breastfeeding for the United States:
Protection, Promotion, and Support
Edited by Karin
Cadwell
Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2002
Available from LLLI, 1155-19, $39.95
reviewed by
Ann Calandro
Waxhaw NC USA
and Jake Aryeh Marcus
Lower Gwynedd PA USA
From: LEAVEN, Vol. 39 No. 1, February-March 2003, pp. 14-15.
This insightful book is a
compendium of information about breastfeeding in the United States.
Karin Cadwell and the book’s other authors have compiled statistics,
quotes, and research findings to enhance understanding of the status
of breastfeeding in the US today. Until 100 years ago, breastfeeding
was the norm in this country, as it was in the world. Now it is almost
considered unusual behavior. The writers in Caldwell’s book make
it clear why breastfeeding educators and advocates must be on a mission
to reclaim what has been lost in our culture.
While the authors of Reclaiming
Breastfeeding delve into different areas of interest for the “breastfeeding
citizens of the United States,” especially those whose goal is
to “protect, promote, and support” breastfeeding, one should
not expect to learn more about breastfeeding management. Do expect to
find tips for encouraging populations of mothers to breastfeed and breastfeed
for longer periods. Leaders will learn a great deal about US culture
and breastfeeding—where it was, where it is now, and where it will
hopefully be in the future. Readers will also learn what commitments
have been made by State and Federal US governments to cooperate with
the World Health Organization regarding artificial baby milk, and what
promises have not been kept. In short, this book is both filled with
facts and figures, and is a political treatise. Cadwell and her authors
have written not only about breastfeeding in the US, but how loss of
breastfeeding as a cultural institution and biological imperative has
occurred throughout the world for many of the same reasons it has in
the US.
Cadwell’s authors analyze
many issues affecting breastfeeding in the US. For many years, breastfeeding
advocacy has been compared to a three-legged stool, with the understanding
that each leg is critical and equally important for stability and success.
The three legs are to promote, to protect, and to support. While reading
through this book, one will begin to see the three legs and just how
extensive the network of education and understanding must be to enable
this stool to balance. Accomplishing balance is an ongoing effort.
Chapter One is a detailed
history of breastfeeding in the US from 1939 to the present. It does
a good job of introducing major events, people, and organizations that
have worked together to bring breastfeeding back to US culture. Moving
from historical episodes to political theory, Cadwell writes that, “the
work of helping a mother breastfeed properly is invisible work…and
the skill of helping mothers to breastfeed was lost because of its invisible
nature—it is difficult to recognize or value what is invisible.”
Breastfeeding was one of the many bits of life passed from mother to
daughter, from female family member to female family member. It was
not an area known to men but it did not need to be. Unfortunately, once
a generation of mothers fails to breastfeed, one generation of females
cannot teach the next. Now it is not only men, but all of society that
has little understanding of the work and knowledge needed to assist
breastfeeding.
Have you ever been puzzled
about why some women persist and breastfeed despite experiencing multiple
problems, and others quit breastfeeding when their baby is thriving
and growing well? In Chapter Eight, the authors examine the family and
cultural influences on breastfeeding duration.
The book discusses how working
away from one’s baby poses challenges to breastfeeding and provides
a brief history of the percentage of women working in the US, along
with research that indicates mothers working part-time and mothers who
have over four months of maternity leave often breastfeed longer. With
so many mothers returning to the paid workplace, this research can guide
the reader to a better understanding of what methods would be most effective
to increase breastfeeding among US mothers.
Chapter Three presents statistics
on the percentages of Caucasian, African-American, and Hispanic women
who breastfeed and discusses some possible cultural factors influencing
breastfeeding in these communities. On a similar theme, Chapter Four
examines the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative and the impact of formula
discharge packs on breastfeeding success and those most at risk after
receiving them.
Interested in critical study
of the validity of research? Chapter Six offers an informative and essential
discussion of “evidence-based breastfeeding practice.”
It is well known that the
majority of US women who breastfeed are educated, higher income, and
Caucasian. Chapter Nine discusses this phenomenon and suggests strategies
for promoting breastfeeding among all women.
There is a tremendous amount
of information in Reclaiming Breastfeeding for the United States. There
are no pretty pictures or interesting personal stories in this book.
The information is nonetheless riveting and accessible. Leaders who
would like to learn more about the history and future of breastfeeding
in the US will be fascinated by the information contained in this book.
We are all part of a world
in which breastfeeding has been abandoned to a significant extent. Having
a solid command of the information in Reclaiming Breastfeeding will
help anyone to participate in the effort to return this essential, life-saving
part of our humanness to this and other cultures. As Mahatma Gandhi
said, “First they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.”
Last updated 11/17/06 by jlm.
Page last edited Sun Oct 14 09:32:07 UTC 2007.
