‘These are modern times’: Infant feeding practice in Peninsular Malaysia

Abstract

Traditionally, Malaysian women (Malay, Indian and Chinese) breastfed their infants as a matter of course and for an extended period of time; only elite Chinese women might have resorted to a wet-nurse. But the introduction of condensed and dehydrated milk in colonial Malaya from the late nineteenth century, and the later marketing also of commercially manufactured baby foods, let to some variation in traditional practice. Structural changes, industrialisation and urbanisation affected social as well as economic life, and again these broad changes had an impact on infant feeding. Today, few women remain unfamiliar with the wide range of infant food products sold in the most isolated provision shops. This paper focuses on key sociological factors that might predict the frequency and duration of breastfeeding and weaning patterns. The data analysed below, collected during semi-structured interviews with 278 women presenting at Maternal and Child Health Clinics in Peninsular Malaysia, are in part confusing. They suggest that the women most likely to bottle feed only or to breast feed for a short period, and to use commercial baby foods, are young, with one child only, who reside in urban or peri-urban areas and have a reasonable household income. Higher educated women, and women whose husbands are in non-traditional occupations, are also less likely to breastfeed or to do so for an extended period. But the profile of infant feeding practices is by no means clear. One of the shortcomings of the study relates to the method of collection of data, and highlights the need for detailed ethnographic studies to better explore the variability and complexity of the patterns of infant feeding.