The Politics of Breastfeeding, 3rd edition (Pinter and Martin, 2009),* by Gabrielle Palmer, opens with this often cited paragraph:
If a multinational company developed a product that was a nutritionally balanced and delicious food, a wonder drug that both prevented and treated disease, cost almost nothing to produce and could be delivered in quantities controlled by consumers' needs, the announcement of this finding would send its shares rocketing to the top of the stock market. The scientists who developed the product would win prizes and the wealth and influence of everyone involved would increase dramatically. Women have long been producing such a miraculous substance, breastmilk, since the beginning of human existence, yet they form the least wealthy and the least powerful half of humanity.
Gabrielle Palmer was one of the original founders of Baby Milk Action in the 1970's, which led the Nestle boycott and remains a force against formula marketing. Since then she has written two editions of The Politics of Breastfeeding.
Palmer begins the preface to her book by stating: "I wish I were not writing this preface. There should be no need for this book. In a world beset by overwhelming problems, here is a resolvable issue. Twenty years ago when I was writing the first edition, more than three thousand babies were dying every day from infections triggered by lack of breastfeeding and the use of bottles, artificial milks, and other risky products. This is still happening."
This book is a thorough and hard-hitting examination of the many forces which contributed to the decline, and struggle to reestablish, breastfeeding here and around the world. It discusses the influence and marketing strategies of formula companies, the absence of family-friendly work policies, and the devaluing of maternal work.
It's all here in this encyclopedic book: the biological foundations, the history of infant feeding, the marketing of formula, the development of the WHO Code, HIV and breastfeeding, fertility and ecological issues, right through the Chinese melamine scandal of 2008.
One message of this updated edition is that as research undermines the basis of formula feeding, formula companies are using increasingly aggressive and sophisticated marketing techniques to sell their products. Another is the trend toward expanding markets into the developing world, where sales of formula are both lucrative potentially deadly. On this point the story seems to have changed little since the days of the initial Nestle boycott, despite international agreements and increased public scrutiny. Marketing methods may have changed, but the motive and effects remain the same.
At times it can be difficult to stomach evidence Palmer presents, and she certainly pulls no punches. But it's also the kind of book that will make an activist out of an observer. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in this topic.
You can read an excerpt of the book here, and here's a recently posted video of a book talk Palmer did, just after the Haiti earthquake. *Pinter and Martin provided me a complimentary review copy of this book.
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