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Home › Articles › Breastfeeding Advocacy › Breastfeeding Around the World

Breastfeeding Around the World

Breastfeeding's Popularity Varies From Place to Place

By Teri Brown

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Worlds Apart-Breastfeeding's Popularity Varies From Place to Place

There has been a revolution of sorts in the United States regarding breastfeeding. While misinformation and prejudice still abound, things are looking up with an increase of available lactation experts, La Leche League groups and hospitals encouraging breastfeeding. But what about other countries? The answer to that depends on which country you are talking about.

Africa
Lucy Thairu is working toward a doctoral degree in international nutrition. She is currently writing her thesis on breastfeeding in sub-Saharan Africa. She conducted research in Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa and found the attitudes there to be very different from those in other countries.

"In contrast to Western cultures where breastfeeding is practically nonexistent in the public eye, and where fully-exposed female breasts typically have sexual connotations, using breasts for feeding a baby is a common feature of everyday life in many settings in sub-Saharan Africa," she says. "African women often come to the experience of breastfeeding with little or no doubt and trust in their ability to produce enough milk or milk of the right quantity."

Thairu says that in many Western cultures, notions of timing, regularity, repetition and scheduling are deeply entrenched within notions of good mothering. "Scheduled and measured feeding sessions are a common feature, and limiting the baby's demands is related to notions in Western society around civilizing babies," she says. "In contrast, in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, baby-led feeding or feeding on demand is a common feature of good parenting."


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