The hard work of feeding the baby: breastfeeding and intensive mothering in contemporary urban China

Abstract

Drawing upon the concept of culture as a "tool kit" from which social actors draw pragmatically, this paper explores the relationship between cultural definitions of good mothering and breastfeeding among middle-class, urban Chinese women. We argue that an emerging culture of "intensive mothering" that focuses on infant feeding is taking shape among privileged urban women. Based upon interviews with new mothers in urban Shanghai, we describe the intense efforts and commitment by these women to provide their babies with breast milk, and we consider the complexities of their attempts to put mothering ideals into practice. We suggest that the linkage between breastfeeding and motherhood represents a "gendered burden" for Chinese women and that infant feeding has become important, early terrain on which new mothers grapple with their own and others' expectations about mothering and caring for a child. We show that intensive, demanding forms of parenting now extend into the earliest years of a child's life, a period largely neglected in sociological studies of parenting in China.

Factors influencing breastfeeding practices in China: A meta‐aggregation of qualitative studies

“…Although many women recognised that breastfeeding is beneficial for infant and maternal health, with a focus on parent-child bonding, only a minority could specify other benefits, such as supporting baby's immune system or reducing the mother's cancer risk (Jiang et al, 2012;Yan et al, 2018). Moreover, some women believed in a relationship between breast milk and jaundice or that breastfeeding was unfavourable to losing pregnancy weight, which negatively affected breastfeeding practices (Gao et al, 2016;Hanser & Li, 2017;Yu et al, 2018).…”

More Than a Wife and a Mom: A Study of Mom Vlogging Practices in China

“…The gender division within family and the dominant motherhood ideology outside the family makes the conflict harder [24]. Hanser and Li argued that intensive, demanding forms of parenting extended into the earliest years of a child's life, and suggested that the linkage between breastfeeding and motherhood represented a "gendered burden" for Chinese women [25]. There are further challenges faced by mothers, many of whom find themselves increasingly isolated and overwhelmed after giving birth to a new baby, leading to extreme stress, anxiety, and depression [22].…”

Milking economies: Multispecies entanglements in the infant formula industry

“…Chinese mothers are increasingly enveloped within practices of scientific motherhood as they try to navigate the complex, scientized terrain of expectations related to infant feeding in their country. These mothers shoulder ‘the gendered burden’ of producing ‘quality’ infants (Hanser and Li, 2015), particularly as neoliberal discourses responsibilize them for the individualized care of their children (Gong and Jackson, 2012). These mothers’ practices of producing ‘quality children’ are shaped by discourses of scientific motherhood that promote not one, single form of feeding: mothers are forced to navigate between formulas pushed by the BMS industry and breastfeeding, the latter increasingly advocated for by biomedical professionals, the global health establishment, the Chinese government and breastfeeding supporters.…”

“…Indeed, it is often urban middle class mothers who, despite valuing breastfeeding, turn to formula when going back to work, having trouble breastfeeding, or believing their milk to be weak (Zhang et al, 2015). The new purchasing power afforded by China's turn to a socialist market economy has enabled this middle class to access foreign formula, which many mothers believe to be safer than domestic brands, especially since the melamine scandal (Gong and Jackson, 2012;Hanser and Li, 2017).…”

“…Infant feeding decisions in urban, especially middle-class, households are also influenced by the transformation of a traditional confinement practice (called zuoyuezi), in which a 'confinement lady' (yuesao) is hired to take care of a mother and new-born directly after birth, and whose nutritional advice is sought in infant feeding decisions (Zhang et al, 2015). The articulation of Western scientific motherhood to and through Chinese practices of kinship and childrearing has been labelled by Lan (2014, in Hanser andLi, 2017) as 'glocal entanglements', pointing to the ways in which 'East' and 'West' are negotiated through everyday practices of mothering. These entangled practices of mothering, though, increasingly exclude particular ways of feeding -such as breastfeeding outside the biomedical gaze -and particular types of food -such as plant-based milk (Gambert and Linn e, 2018).…”