@article{1480361,
      recid = {1480361},
      author = {Wolf, Joan B., },
      title = {Is Breast Best? : Taking on the Breastfeeding Experts and  the New High Stakes of Motherhood /},
      pages = {1 online resource},
      abstract = {Since the invention of dextri-maltose and the subsequent  rise of Similac in the early twentieth century, parents  with access to clean drinking water have had a safe  alternative to breast-milk. Use of formula spiked between  the 1950s and 1970s, with some reports showing that nearly  75 percent of the population relied on commercial formula  to at least supplement a breastfeeding routine. So how is  it that most of those bottle-fed babies grew up to believe  that breast, and only breast, is best?In Is Breast Best?  Joan B. Wolf challenges the widespread belief that  breastfeeding is medically superior to bottle-feeding.  Despite the fact that breastfeeding has become the ultimate  expression of maternal dedication, Wolf writes, the  conviction that breastfeeding provides babies unique health  benefits and that formula feeding is a risky substitute is  unsubstantiated by the evidence. In accessible prose, Wolf  argues that a public obsession with health and what she  calls "total motherhood" has made breastfeeding a cause  célèbre, and that public discussions of breastfeeding say  more about infatuation with personal responsibility and  perfect mothering in America than they do about the  concrete benefits of the breast.Why has breastfeeding  re-asserted itself over the last twenty years, and why are  the government, the scientific and medical communities, and  so many mothers so invested in the idea? Parsing the  rhetoric of expert advice, including the recent National  Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign, and rigorously  questioning the scientific evidence, Wolf uncovers a path  by which a mother can feel informed and confident about how  best to feed her thriving infant-whether flourishing by  breast or by bottle.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1480361},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814794814.001.0001},
}