Report Broken Link

Breastfeeding in New Zealand from colonisation until the year 1980: An historical review

Abstract:

Understandings of breastfeeding have changed dramatically over the past one hundred and twenty years. This historical review of breastfeeding in New Zealand highlights how women prior to 1900 embraced their embodied knowledge about breastfeeding, and that this knowledge contributed to building communities where breastfeeding was practised as an art. However, as scientific knowledge, and the associated language that depicts and describes breastfeeding, gained prominence in the early twentieth century, women’s embodied knowledge was silenced. The literature on this topic demonstrates how biomedical language about human lactation has held a privileged position over women’s knowledge since. This review highlights how midwives, nurses and other health care practitioners need to examine taken-for-granted ways of working alongside breastfeeding women, and renew the focus on woman-centred ways of knowing and associated language.

 view online article View Document

Breastfeeding, colonisation, history, medicalisation, women’s health