Risk, Responsibility, and Rhetoric in Infant Feeding

This article considers the way in which discourses around risk intersect with the ideology of motherhood in advanced liberal societies. Neoliberal citizens are urged to exercise prudence in the light of expert advice about minimizing risk through behavioral choices. The “good mother” is one who maximizes physical and psychological outcomes for her child, regardless of personal cost. Drawing on data from a longitudinal interview study of first-time mothers' feeding practices, the moral context that arises at the intersection of these two discourses is explored. Experts advise mothers to breast-feed and warn of the short-, medium-, and long-term risks associated with formula feeding. Most mothers accept the validity of these expert claims and most initiate breast feeding. However, many abandon breast feeding long before experts recommend. This article considers how mothers deal with the threat to their identities as good, neoliberal citizens and mothers that arises from such feeding practices.