The Medicalization of Infant Feeding in the United States and New Zealand: Two Countries, One Experience

Abstract

In barely more than half a century, between the 1880s and the 1940s, infant feeding practices changed dramatically in the United States. In the nineteenth century, breastfeeding predominated, though alternatives were used in some cases. By the mid-twentieth century, the consensus of health care personnel and the general public supported medically-directed artificial infant feeding. A similar trend was apparent in New Zealand as well, although there the popularity of bottle-feeding occurred somewhat later and replaced breastfeeding more rapidly. Although the timing and pace of the shift from breastfeeding to bottle-feeding differed slightly for women in these geographically disparate parts of the world, the factors that influenced women's choices were similar (most particularly the medicalization of infant feeding and the institutionalization of childbirth), and the outcomes the same: women bottle-fed their infants.