Shame and the Breastfeeding Mother in Ireland

Abstract

There has been considerable discussion about why breastfeeding rates in Ireland are the lowest in Europe, perhaps even the lowest globally. Newspaper articles and blogs signal how fraught the topic has become: breastfeeding, or rather its widespread absence, is presented not just as a fact but as a crisis and a site for national self-examination. Why, ask all the newspapers, don’t Irish mothers breastfeed? As medical literature and social movements in both western and developing nations argue for the benefits of breastfeeding, Ireland has witnessed a mobilization at both the national and grassroots level to encourage mothers to nurse their babies. Lady Sabina