Ok, I have now read LB's book "At the Breast" -- has anyone else?  I would be
interested in corresponding and hearing your opinion.  My guess is that US
people might have opinions on her analysis of LLL in the US.  I found some of
what she had to say of real interest.  Some of her conclusions on working class
culture have similarities to the findings of Hoddinott in her work with women in
London's East End.  This is also the first qualitative work I have seen (though
I would not be surprised to learn that there is more) on black american women.

At one point in the book she says something like 'Breastfeeding was, for me, the
most deeply ambivilent thing I have ever done'.  (This was in response to a
question from one of her interviewees as to why she was doing the research.)  It
struck me that a lot of the sociological type research on bf is done by those
with these feelings (and I have to credit her with her insight and honesty on
including it) -- e.g. Pam Carter, IMO.  I have lots of ambivilent feelings about
breastfeeding practices in terms of promotion and strategies by health workeers
and lay organisations and governments, but I feel much more unequivocally
positive about bf and I wonder at the strange situation we are in where so much
of the qualitative work is being done from ouside the 'community' of those who
really understand and value breastfeeding in an embodied way.  Hoddinott, who
writes very interestingly of the way her own ideas shifted as she did her
research, does not have children, BTW.

Magda Sachs
Breastfeeding Supporter, BfN, UK

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