This paper was written in preparation for a talk I was asked to give at the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action Partners Meeting in Salvador, Brazil on July 23, 2001. I was too late arriving for there to be time for me to give it, but here it is, presenting my thoughts on the international breastfeeding promotion “movement” today.

In some sense breastfeeding promotion is right back in the same crisis situation is faced 20 years ago: there is too little money to do much. Indeed, the basis for undertaking powerful actions on behalf of breastfeeding may in some sense be weaker now. We’ve lost the sheen of being something new, “sexy.” In many countries policy makers are content with current levels of breastfeeding, not realizing how important and rare exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) is. The nutrition community, for one, perceives breastfeeding as having received if anything too much money and attention compared to other issues. And media attention now comes only when something anti-breastfeeding comes along.

Is there some kind of backlash against breastfeeding among elite women who resent being told so often now that they are raising their infants in an inferior way? Maybe they more often have positions of power or influence in the media than they did 20 years ago, particularly in North America where they have so little support and yet so much reach in the communication media and cultural impact. Maybe we need a project with high visibility to shame the US by providing “development assistance” to American women in key positions!

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