The Conflict (12 page)

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Authors: Elisabeth Badinter

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59
Colette Guillaumin,
Sexe, race et pratique du pouvoir: l'idée de nature
(Paris: Côté-femmes, 1992). Nicole-Claude Mathieu,
L'anatomie politique: catégorisations et idéologies du sexe
(Paris: Coté-femmes, 1991). Marie-Claude Hurtig, Michèle Kail, and Hélène Rouch, eds.,
Sexe et genre: de la hiérarchie entre les sexes
(Paris: CNRS, 1991). Christine Delphy,
L'ennemi principal 1. Écon-omie politique du patriarcat
and
L'Ennemi principal 2. Penser le genre
(Paris: Syllepse, 1998 and 2001). The review
Questions féministes
(1977–1980) followed by
Nouvelles questions féministes
(since 1981).
3. MOTHERS, YOU OWE THEM EVERYTHING!
1
See T. Berry Brazelton,
Touchpoints: Birth to Three
(Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2006).
2
Yvonne Knibiehler,
La révolution maternelle: femmes, matér-nité, citoyenneté depuis 1945
(Paris: Perrin, 1999), pp. 209–91.
3
Lille, October 2004.
4
Claude Dreux and Gilles Crépin, “Prévention des risques pour l'enfant à naître,”
Bulletin de l'Académie nationale de médecine
190, no. 3 (2006): 713–23.
5
Le Figaro
, December 26, 2008.
6
Jonathan Winickoff et al., “Beliefs About the Health Effects of Thirdhand Smoke and Home Smoking Bans,”
Paediatrics
123, no. 1 (2009): 74–79.
7
Ibid.
8
Press release of September 11, 2006, under the aegis of the Ministry of Health.
9
A U.S. study published in 2003 found that 15.1 percent of American women continued to drink alcohol during pregnancy (Heather A. Flynn et al., “Rates and Correlates of Alcohol Use
Among Pregnant Women in Obstetrics Clinics,”
Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research
27, no. 1 [January 2003]: 81–87), while 21.7 percent smoked while pregnant (Renee D. Goodwin et al., “Mental Disorders and Nicotine Dependence Among Pregnant Women in the United States,”
Obstetrics & Gynecology
109, no. 4 [April 2007]: 875).
10
Éliette Abécassis,
Un heureux événement
(Paris: Albin Michel, 2005), p. 28.
11
The name was chosen by Mary White's husband—an obstetrician and advocate of natural childbirth—inspired by a statue of the Madonna in Saint Augustine, Florida, honoring “Nuestra Senora de la Leche y Buen Parto”—Our Lady of Easy Delivery and Plentiful Milk.
12
See Lynn Y. Weiner, “Reconstructing Motherhood: The La Leche League in Postwar America,”
Journal of American History
80, no. 4 (March 1994): 1357–81; Christina G. Bobel, “Bounded Liberation: A Focused Study of La Leche League International,”
Gender & Society
15, no. 1 (February 2001): 130–51; Gilza Sandre-Pereira, “La Leche League: des femmes pour l'allaitement maternel (1956–2004),”
Maternités, CLIO
, no. 21 (2005): 174–87.
13
Linda M. Blum,
At the Breast: Ideologies of Breastfeeding and Motherhood in the Contemporary United States
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1999), p. 4. The sociologist pronouncing these two principles states that they characterize contemporary motherhood.
14
Glenda Wall, “Moral Constructions of Motherhood in Breastfeeding Discourse,”
Gender & Society
15, no. 4 (August 2001): 592–610.
16
Weiner, “Reconstructing Motherhood,” p. 1370.
17
Vicky Debonnet-Gobin,
Allaitement maternel et médecine générale
(thesis for doctorate of medicine, Université de Picardie Jules Verne/Faculté de médecine d'Amiens, September 26, 2005), p. 9.
18
Allaitement maternel: les bénéfices pour la santé de l'enfant et de sa mère
, 2005, published by the French Ministry of Solidarity, Health and Family.
19
Jean Rey, “Breastfeeding and Cognitive Development,” supplement,
Acta Paediatrica
92, no. 5442 (August 2003): S11–S18; Geoff Der et al., “Effect of Breast Feeding on Intelligence in Children,”
British Medical Journal
333, no. 7575 (October 4, 2006): 945,
http://www.bmj.com
.
20
Pierre Bitoun, “Valeur économique de l'allaitement maternel,”
Les dossiers de l'obstétrique
216 (April 1994): 10–13. Dr. Bitoun is a pediatrician and a member of the EU Promotion of Breastfeeding project. Several calculations of this kind have been done in other countries. See T. M. Ball and A. L. Wright, “Health Care Costs of Formula-feeding in the First Year of Life,”
Paediatrics
103 (1999): 870–76.
21
A figure put forward by Debonnet-Gobin in her thesis,
Allaitement maternel et médecine générale
, p. 10.
22
Ibid., p. 11.
25
Even though pediatricians recognize that formula is increasingly well-adapted to a baby's nutritional needs. Debonnet-Gobin,
Allaitement maternel et médicine générale
, p. 28.
26
Reported by Claude Didierjean-Jouveau, former president
of the French LLL and current editor in chief of the review
Allaiter aujourd'hui
, in Sandre-Pereira, “La Leche League,” p. 5.
27
Edwige Antier,
Éloge des mères
(Paris: Robert Laffont, 2001), p. 166.
28
Edwige Antier,
Confidences de parents
(Paris: Robert Laffont, 2002), p. 113.
29
Edwige Antier,
Vive l'éducation!
(Paris: Robert Laffont, 2003), p. 13.
30
Elisabeth Badinter,
Mother Love: Myth and Reality—Motherhood in Modern History
(New York: Macmillan, 1981), pp. 186–90. See also Marilyn Yalom,
A History of the Breast
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997).
31
Allaiter aujourd'hui
, 1993, p. 3 n. 16.
32
Weiner, “Reconstructing Motherhood,” p. 1368.
33
Robin Slaw, “1999 LLLI Conference Sessions: Promoting Breastfeeding or Promoting Guilt?”
New Beginnings
16, no. 5 (September–October 1999): 171.
34
Weiner, “Reconstructing Motherhood,” p. 1375.
35
Viviane Antony-Nebout reports that in 1989 UNICEF estimated that five thousand children under the age of five died every day of diarrhea and respiratory infections because they were not breast-fed; in other words, 1.5 million every year in developing countries. See Viviane Antony-Nebout,
Hôpital Ami des bébés: impact sur l'allaitement, militantisme ou respect des femmes?
(doctoral thesis, Université de Poitiers, 2007), p. 20.
36
Ibid., pp. 24–25.
37
Ibid., p. 23.
38
It stipulates that a child has the right to enjoy the best possible state of health, specifically breast-feeding.
39
Every facility providing maternity services and care for newborns must meet the following requirements: (1) Have a written breast-feeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff. (2) Train all health care staff in the skills necessary to implement this policy. (3) Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and practice of breast-feeding. (4) Help mothers initiate breast-feeding within half an hour of birth. (5) Show mothers how to breast-feed and how to maintain lactation even if they should be separated from their infants. (6) Give newborn infants no food or drink other than breast milk, unless medically indicated. (7) Practice rooming-in—that is, allow mothers and infants to remain together—twenty-four hours a day. (8) Encourage breast-feeding on demand. (9) Give no artificial teats or pacifiers to breast-feeding infants. (10) Foster the establishment of breast-feeding support groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or clinic.
40
In June 1991, during a meeting of the International Association of Pediatricians.
41
One just has to read the introductory text of the Innocenti Declaration to be convinced that LLL has won on every point: “Breastfeeding is a unique process that:
provides ideal nutrition for infants and contributes to their healthy growth and development;
reduces incidence and severity of infectious diseases, thereby lowering infant morbidity and mortality;
contributes to women's health by reducing the risk of breast and ovarian cancer, and by increasing the spacing between pregnancies;
provides social and economic benefits to the family and the nation;
provides most women with a sense of satisfaction when successfully carried out …
these benefits increase with increased exclusiveness of breastfeeding during the first six months of life, and thereafter with increased duration of breastfeeding with complementary foods.”

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