page_title: Breastfeeding
section_title: Criticism of breastfeeding advocacy
hierarchical_section_title: Breastfeeding / Society and culture / Criticism of breastfeeding advocacy
caption_attribution_description: English: "See It" project by Fiann Paul. The installation of the photographs of the Icelandic mothers breastfeeding, taken in the remote areas of Iceland, decorated the building at Tryggvagata in the heart of the capital city of Iceland from September 2011 to March 2012. Project dedicated to promotion of the awareness of breastfeeding. Copyrights released for Wikipedia under creative common license, Uploaded by author from http://www.fiannpaul.com/projects-and-publications.html
context_page_description: Breastfeeding, also known as nursing, is the feeding of babies and young children with milk from a woman's breast. Health professionals recommend that breastfeeding begin within the first hour of a baby's life and continue as often and as much as the baby wants. During the first few weeks of life babies may nurse roughly every two to three hours, and the duration of a feeding is usually ten to fifteen minutes on each breast. Older children feed less often. Mothers may pump milk so that it can be used later when breastfeeding is not possible. Breastfeeding has a number of benefits to both mother and baby, which infant formula lacks.
  Deaths of an estimated 820,000 children under the age of five could be prevented globally every year with increased breastfeeding. Breastfeeding decreases the risk of respiratory tract infections and diarrhea for the baby, both in developing and developed countries. Other benefits include lower risks of asthma, food allergies, and type 1 diabetes. Breastfeeding may also improve cognitive development and decrease the risk of obesity in adulthood.
context_section_description: There are controversies and ethical considerations surrounding the means used by public campaigns which attempt to increase breastfeeding rates, relating to pressure put on women, and potential feeling of guilt and shame of women who fail to breastfeed; and social condemnation of women who use formula. In addition to this, there is also the moral question as to what degree the state or medical community can interfere with the self-determination of a woman: for example in the United Arab Emirates the law requires a woman to breastfeed her baby for at least 2 years and allows her husband to sue her if she does not do so.
  It is widely assumed that if women's healthcare providers encourage them to breastfeed, those who choose not to will experience more guilt. Evidence does not support this assumption. On the contrary, a study on the effects of prenatal breastfeeding counselling found that those who had received such counselling and chosen to formula-feed denied experiencing feelings of guilt. Women  were equally comfortable with their subsequent choices for feeding their infant regardless of whether they had received encouragement to breastfeed.
  Preventing a situation where women are denied agency and/or stigmatized for formula use is also seen as important. In 2018, in the UK, a policy statement from the Royal College of Midwives said that women should be supported and not stigmatized, if  after being given advice and information, they choose to formula feed.
caption: "See It", a project by Fiann Paul dedicated to promoting awareness of breastfeeding in the capital city of Iceland in 2011[210]
exif: {}