Breastfeeding beyond the year. Criticism, beliefs, and corporality

Abstract

Aim: Analyzing breastfeeding since the perspective of it symbolic importance in the built of relationships and social bonds. Objectives: 1) Analyze the role that mothers give to breastfeeding in the construction of human being and the relationship; 2) Investigate the symbolic order that supports criticism and/or pressures received by mothers when decided nurse their kids with no restrictions of time or place.
Materials and Method: Qualitative methodology: In-depth interviews to nursing mothers and participative observation in breastfeeding support groups.
Results and Conclusions: For mothers, breastfeeding was an important contribution to biopsychosocial formation of children that would become free individuals. However, these mothers had received criticism or pressure for breastfeeding without restrictions. Criticism increased as the baby was becoming a child. These criticisms were based on the mother-child dependence; the "spoil" children; the obscenity of breastfeeding in public and the accusation of “neo-sexist”. These points reveal an individualistic symbolic order that structures (post) modernity and a certain social control based on the use of bodies and fluids. Mothers often legitimize their feedings from biologicist speeches where "follow the instinct" comes as a boost for making individual decisions.