Breast is best? Negotiating baby-feeding norms

This seminar, coordinated by Laudine Carbuccia (CRIS / LIEPP) and Montserrat Botey (OFCE : Gender Studies Programme / LIEPP) as part of the Family Policies working group, is co-organised by the LIEPP socio-fiscal policies research group and the educational policies research group.

Abstract

The seminar will discuss mothers’ experiences and discourses around their baby-feeding experiences. International health organisations recommend breastfeeding as the best for babies, advice that is also transmitted by healthcare professionals in Europe. Breastfeeding can also be considered as a behaviour in accordance with intensive motherhood practices, which is often described as the dominant ideology regarding motherhood in rich countries. 

But mothers’ practices are very diverse, and many mothers do not breastfeed, which puts them at risk of being considered “bad mothers”. How do mothers negotiate conformity and deviance to the medical norm in this realm? Do mothers reproduce or resist the intensive motherhood norm? These questions will be explored using evidence from qualitative interviews with first-time mothers, carried out in Spain in 2013.

Speaker

Marta Dominguez-Folgueras is an Associate Professor of Sociology at CRIS.

Her research interests lie in the sociology of the family, the sociology of time use, and the sociology of gender. Her current research focuses on couple formation and family behaviour, particularly the division of domestic tasks and childcare, with a special interest in gender inequalities.