Boobs over boardrooms. It’s World Breastfeeding Week. And we need to talk about it.
It’s world breastfeeding week. Or, it was. Until yesterday. It came and went and you probably didn’t notice because ~no one cares~. Okay, okay – you might care. And I (obviously) care. But the hyperbole felt appropriate in our cultural context. Hospitals are handing out formula samples to vulnerable new moms, droves of Silicon Valley investors are hedging their hedge funds on shiny new formula companies, and breastfeeding in public is still treated like some strange display of audacity, when it’s actually just a mother feeding her baby; feeding from her very own body. From the same body that held and carried and birthed her baby. From the same body she retains agency over despite “authorities” casting their
But we don’t have reverence for that, either, since we’ve disempowered and diminished women’s innate power for most of modern history. We don’t need a week to tokenize breastfeeding. We need an entire paradigm shift. An overhaul of our orientation. A remembrance. A collective awakening. Because to boardrooms and tech bros and fembot boss babes it might not matter, but it matters to babies. And it matters to our biology.
You know who gives a sh*t about world breastfeeding week? Your baby. Because having access to your breasts and your milk without interference is their birthright. There is no food on this earth more alchemic — more potent and perfect — than breast milk. No amount of synthetic engineering can mimic the intelligence of breastmilk; an individually tailored, immunomodulating, superfood that adapts and morphs to meet the nutritional needs of your specific baby hour by hour, depending on the messages your baby sends to your body via their saliva. *No, Silicon Valley, this is not a challenge for you to try and bioengineer breastmilk.
There is no place softer and safer for a baby to bond than his or her mother’s breasts. No marketing magic or clever copy will change that (perhaps inconvenient?) biological truth. Breastfeeding is a public health imperative. A maternal rite of passage. A physiological portal for prevention and protection in categories from airway development to digestive maturation to entire microbiome mapping.
Breastfeeding is an initiation into the very real neurobiological changes that unfold if we mother in line with our biology. A chemical cocktail of love for mom and baby. Oxytocin. Prolactin. Nature’s brilliant design. So brilliant that it can’t be profited off of unless it’s interfered with.
Maybe that’s why world breastfeeding week gets very little air time or algorithmic space. Because no one that pulls the strings of social media really cares about babies and boobs. They care about profit, and promoting products that turn profit.
But your baby cares. And I care. And maybe you do too.
xoxo, Britt
Missed my IG post illustrating the irony and poetry of breastfeeding in late-stage capitalism? Check it out here.
If you’re curious about sources and science and want to dive deeper into the multifaceted, functional brilliance of breastmilk, check out the following resources:
Tomaszewska A, Jeleniewska A, Porębska K, Królikowska K, Rustecka A, Lipińska-Opałka A, Będzichowska A, Zdanowski R, Aleksandrowicz K, Kloc M, Kalicki B. Immunomodulatory Effect of Infectious Disease of a Breastfed Child on the Cellular Composition of Breast Milk. Nutrients. 2023 Sep 3;15(17):3844. doi: 10.3390/nu15173844. PMID: 37686876; PMCID: PMC10490220.
Stuebe A. The risks of not breastfeeding for mothers and infants. Rev Obstet Gynecol. 2009 Fall;2(4):222-31. PMID: 20111658; PMCID: PMC2812877.
Infant and Young Child Feeding, World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/infant-and-young-child-feeding
American Academy of Pediatrics. (2012). Breastfeeding and the use of human milk. Pediatrics, 129(3), e827–e841.https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/129/3/e827
