Breastfeeding

The Model Chapter on Infant and Young Child Feeding is intended for use in basic training of health professionals. It describes essential knowledge and basic skills that every health professional who works with mothers and young children should master. The Model Chapter can be used by teachers and students as a complement to textbooks or as a concise reference manual.

How often does my baby really need to feed? How do I know my baby is getting enough? Is it normal for my baby to wake at night? When you're expecting a new baby, suddenly everyone around you becomes an expert – particularly when it comes to how to feed them. It is easy to become overwhelmed by conflicting advice, myths and exaggerated stories. The Positive Breastfeeding Book cuts through the anecdotes, giving you clear, no-judgement, non-preachy, evidence-based information to help you make the right decisions for you and your baby. It will… help you understand how breastfeeding works give you tips for planning for your baby's arrival help you cope with those early months support you to make sure that whilst you're looking after the baby, you're getting taken care of too point you to how to seek help if challenges come up guide you through feeding in public, going back to work, and even rediscovering a glass of wine You'll find plenty of real stories and guidance throughout from mothers and experts in supporting breastfeeding. There are handy chapters on formula and mixed feeding, which cut through advertising spiel and give you the facts you need to choose and use formula safely. The Positive Breastfeeding Book doesn't promise to make it easy, nor will it get up in the middle of the night for you, but it will empower you with the knowledge and encouragement you need to feed your baby with confidence.

A complete resource for any health-care professional to provide expectant and nursing mothers with the most current medical advice on breastfeeding and related topics. Contains additional information on supporting breastfeeding mothers and meeting their specific physical and emotional needs.

Obtain the basic information necessary to manage a nursing mother and child from conception through complete weaning from this scientifically accurate medical text on the science and art of breastfeeding. BREASTFEEDING provides in-depth medical information about human milk, management techniques for handling breastfeeding in adverse circumstances, and relevant psychological and social issues that affect parent-infant bonding. It includes information on the anatomical, physiological, biochemical, nutritional, immunologic, and psychological aspects of human lactation, to the problems of clinical management of breastfeeding. Increased coverage of drugs in human breast milk, advances in biochemical, nutritional, and immunologic aspects of human lactation, and a new chapter on infectious disease and breastfeeding make the fifth edition of BREASTFEEDING a critical resource for any clinician whose patients include breastfeeding women. Features a new chapter and appendix on infectious diseases and breastfeeding which describe the impact of infectious disease in either the mother or infant, and the effects of antibiotics on breastmilk. Contains expanded coverage on drugs in human breast milk and advances in biochemical, nutritional, and immunologic aspects of human lactation for clinicians to inform patients about the benefits of breastfeeding and the potential dangers of ingesting medication during pregnancy and lactation. Spanish version of 4th edition also available, ISBN: 84-8174-176-0

Breastfeeding: New Anthropological Approaches unites sociocultural, biological, and archaeological anthropological scholarship to spark new conversations and research about breastfeeding. While breastfeeding has become the subject of intense debate in many settings, anthropological perspectives have played a limited role in these conversations. The present volume seeks to broaden discussions around breastfeeding by showcasing fresh insights gleaned from an array of theoretical and methodological approaches, which are grounded in the close study of people across the globe. Drawing on case studies and analyses of key issues in the field, the book highlights the power of anthropological research to illuminate the evolutionary, historical, biological, and sociocultural context of the complex, lived experience of breastfeeding. By bringing together researchers across three anthropological subfields, the volume seeks to produce transformative knowledge about human lactation, breastfeeding, and human milk. This book is a key resource for scholars of medical and biological anthropology, evolutionary biology, bioarchaeology, sociocultural anthropology, and human development. Lactation professionals and peer supporters, midwives, and others who support infant feeding will find the book an essential read.

Human lactation has evolved to produce a milk composition that is uniquely-designed for the human infant. Not only does human milk optimize infant growth and development, it also provides protection from infection and disease. More recently, the importance of human milk and breastfeeding in the programming of infant health has risen to the fore. Anchoring of infant feeding in the developmental origins of health and disease has led to a resurgence of research focused in this area. Milk composition is highly variable both between and within mothers. Indeed the distinct maternal human milk signature, including its own microbiome, is influenced by environmental factors, such as diet, health, body composition and geographic residence. An understanding of these changes will lead to unravelling the adaptation of milk to the environment and its impact on the infant. In terms of the promotion of breastfeeding, health economics and epidemiology is instrumental in shaping public health policy and identifying barriers to breastfeeding. Further, basic research is imperative in order to design evidence-based interventions to improve both breastfeeding duration and women’s breastfeeding experience.

Breastfeeding is a human bodily function that differs in practice across cultural and historical boundaries, yet is framed as “natural” and morally virtuous. Breastfeeding and the Pursuit of Happiness rejects the dichotomy of right versus wrong, exploring the historical, political, and symbolic roots of this sacrosanct belief in “breast is best” – from allusions to biblical milk and honey to contemporary claims of parenting and wellness experts. Within disparate contexts such as medieval Europe, eighteenth-century France, contemporary Indonesia, and the mommy blogosphere, Phyllis Rippey finds that infant feeding prescriptions often serve the interests of the powerful rather than meeting the needs of women, infants, and families. Upending some of our most cherished beliefs about the maternal breast, Rippey reveals the ways historical and contemporary debates over breast versus bottle feeding distract from the underlying issues of poverty, environmental destruction, and violence against women. Rippey balances science-based and historical analysis with the stories of lesbian mothers and trans fathers, Black and White breastfeeding advocates, and Indonesian mothers, among other mothers who express feelings of empowerment, pleasure, pain, and moral failure. At turns witty, heartbreaking, and intellectually compelling, Breastfeeding and the Pursuit of Happiness draws on Hannah Arendt, Black feminist thought, affect theory, the ethics of care, and theories of political humility to offer a new framework for valuing and affirming the human power of giving and receiving care, including through the breast.

This book centers on the role of media in shaping public perceptions of breastfeeding. Drawing from magazines, doctors’ office materials, parenting books, television, websites, and other media outlets, Katherine A. Foss explores how historical and contemporary media often undermine breastfeeding efforts with formula marketing and narrow portrayals of nursing women and their experiences. Foss argues that the media’s messages play an integral role in setting the standard of public knowledge and attitudes toward breastfeeding, as she traces shifting public perceptions of breastfeeding and their corresponding media constructions from the development of commercial formula through contemporary times. This analysis demonstrates how attributions of blame have negatively impacted public health approaches to breastfeeding, thus confronting the misperception that breastfeeding, and the failure to breastfeed, rests solely on the responsibility of an individual mother.