Book Review: Why the Politics of Breastfeeding Matter, by Gabrielle Palmer

This small book in the Why It Matter series from Pinter & Martin is a distillation of Palmer’s earlier, bigger book with a similar title: a good starting point from which to explore this huge and frankly upsetting subject.

Palmer begins with the well-established health case for supporting and protecting breastfeeding: more than 2,000 baby deaths per day worldwide, as a broad headline; and many far-reaching consequences that affect families every day, in the developed world and beyond. The history of commercial baby milk substitutes going back over 100 years is clearly explained, showing how the creation of a market, rather than the health and wellbeing of infants, has always been the industry’s main motivator. The book explores the ethics of testing the product on the market – also known as giving untested formula milk to babies; as well as the growth of the close relationship between health professionals and manufacturers. This relationship has led to the complete undermining and misunderstanding of normal breastfeeding, to the point at which breastfeeding failure is now framed as a “flaw of women’s bodies” (p45); meanwhile historical practices at the time of birth, and social pressures to parent in certain ways, sabotage the breastfeeding relationship and contribute to this vicious circle of ignorance.

Palmer explains why the ongoing Nestle boycott matters, why the WHO developed the International Code for the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes in 1981, and how the milk manufacturers created unnecessary products like follow-on milk in order to exploit its loopholes. One unanticipated side effect of this was to present breastmilk purely as a food product, erasing the importance of the breastmilk relationship, and making it harder for society to value this fundamental aspect of motherhood.

The huge implications of all of this for global issues like poverty and climate change are introduced towards the end, leaving the reader potentially feeling angry and cheated by big business; and hopefully ready to fight for change.

Disclosure: I was sent a free review copy of Why The Politics of Breastfeeding Matter by the publisher; you can order it here, with a 10% discount at the checkout, using the code SPROGCAST.