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Series

Volume 26

Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives

Reviews

Reviews for the 1st Edition:

“Tomori’s research reveals that these two fields—breastfeeding and sleep—are intricately intertwined not only in practice but also theoretically through analysis that exposes the contradictions inherent in the cultural norms governing these intimate embodied experiences.” • Anthropologica

“This work will be useful for medical anthropologists and professionals at all levels of reproductive health care and family medicine. It offers important ethnographic analysis relevant to feminist anthropology, women’s and gender studies, and cross-cultural and bio-evolutionary perspectives on kinship and family.” • Medical Anthropology Quarterly

“In this beautifully written ethnography … Cecılia Tomori provides a broad‐ranging yet in‐depth discussion of numerous anthropological topics, including kinship, reproduction, and personhood … This book is a pleasure to read, and will be of interest not only to scholars of gender, kinship, and reproduction, but also to those who work on the subjects of embodiment, authoritative knowledge, expertise, morality, the house, and temporality. It deserves to be read widely, both within the academy and beyond.” • Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute

“I have nothing but praise for this book and its worth. It is written in a flawless and effortless manner. I loved the tone and how it packs in so much factorial information without the reader knowing it, but at the same time explores in-depth intimate life decisions and care giving practices that we have never seen so closely and so vividly presented.” • James J. McKenna, University of Notre Dame

“This is an excellent piece of scholarship that … draws upon a wide range of highly relevant literature which is used to make sense of the data. It illuminates a unique and compelling anthropological perspective on the lived, embodied practices of breastfeeding with particular emphasis upon the complex moral dilemmas related to breastfeeding and sleep practices.” • Fiona Dykes, University of Central Lancashire

“The controversies prompted by nighttime breastfeeding touch on so many hot-button issues in American culture: sexuality, child endangerment, the importance of individualism and independence in American culture to name a few. And this author handles the issue with sophistication and clarity.” • Jacqueline H. Wolf, Ohio University

Description

New parents in the United States are caught between responding to infant needs for closeness and breastfeeding, and cultural and medical norms that emphasize solitary sleep. This anthropological investigation shows that nighttime closeness and breastfeeding are the evolutionary and cross-cultural norm, but recent sociocultural shifts produced novel ideals of separation. The book uncovers how breastfeeding parents rework these cultural ideals. In this new edition, the author describes shifting medical guidance that increasingly supports breastfeeding yet remains largely separated from infant sleep guidance. The volume also provides a path towards more equitable approaches to nighttime infant care grounded in reproductive justice.

Subject: Medical AnthropologyGender Studies and Sexuality

Area: North America

Contents

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Of Related Interest

Parenthood between Generations

Transforming Reproductive Cultures

Making Multiple Babies

Anticipatory Regimes of Assisted Reproduction

Ethnography in the Raw

Life in a Luzon Village

Pregnancy in Practice

Expectation and Experience in the Contemporary US