'Breast is best' is today’s prevailing mantra. However, women – particularly first-time mothers – frequently feel unsupported when they come to feed their baby. This new experience often takes place in the impersonal and medicalized surroundings of a hospital maternity ward where women are 'seen to' by overworked midwives.

Using a UK-based ethnographic study and interview material, this book provides a new, radical and critical perspective on the ways in which women experience breastfeeding in hospitals. It highlights that, in spite of heavy promotion of breastfeeding, there is often a lack of support for women who begin to breastfeed in hospitals, thus challenging the current system of postnatal care within a culture in which neither service-user nor provider feel satisfied.

Incorporating recommendations for policy and practice on infant feeding, Breastfeeding in Hospital is highly relevant to health professionals and breastfeeding supporters as well as to students in health and social care, medical anthropology and medical sociology, as it explores practice issues while contextualising them within a broad social, political and economic context.

'This book contributes significantly to our understanding of women’s experience and decisions about breastfeeding, What is particularly exciting about this work is that it gives new insight into the impact of the institution, a hospital postnatal ward, on women’s experience and decisions about feeding.' – Virginia Schmied, Associate Professor, School of Nursing, University of Western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Dyke reveals that what occurs in hospital is the 'management' of what is seen as a vunerable mechanism for the transfer of a superior fluid, rather than the encouragement of a nurturing relationship between mother and baby. New Digest Mary Smale, NCT Breastfeeding Counsellor and Tutor

'This book is a ‘must read’ for all professionals involved in the provision of postnatal care and will be of interest to other health related disciplines and the social sciences... [it] contributes significantly to our understanding of women’s experience and decisions about breastfeeding.' - Virginia Schmied, University of Western Sydney, Australia

Dyke reveals that what occurs in hospital is the 'management' of what is seen as a vunerable mechanism for the transfer of a superior fluid, rather than the encouragement of a nurturing relationship between mother and baby. New Digest Mary Smale, NCT Breastfeeding Counsellor and Tutor

Dr. Fiona Dykes is Professor of Maternal and Infant Health; Director of Maternal & Infant Nutrition & Nurture Unit (MAINN) at University of Central Lancashire, UK.