Breastfeeding Shame and the Birth of the Mother

THIS CHAPTER RESPONDS to intensifying calls for research on the experience and lived practice of breastfeeding and, in particular, for research engaging with lesser told narratives of breastfeeding struggle. These calls emerge at the height of debate about the future of science-based breastfeeding promotion, which has to date gained important ground for women in establishing infants' rights to receive "the best start to life" through exclusive breastfeeding until six months. Growing interest in the unintended negative impacts of this infant-focused approach, however, has been in part sparked by a persistent group of scholars prepared to engage with and acknowledge maternal physical, emotional, and psychological suffering associated with breastfeeding struggle. This is a which form every of maternal suffering sharpened in an environment in new mother now knows "breast is best." Contextual­ized by current debates over breastfeeding promotion, this chapter shifts to a more sustained and personal account of the emotional dynamics of breastfeeding failure.