Bottled Up by Suzanne Barston - Hardcover - University of California Press

About the Book

As the subject of a popular web reality series, Suzanne Barston and her husband Steve became a romantic, ethereal model for new parenthood. Called “A Parent is Born,” the program’s tagline was “The journey to parenthood . . . from pregnancy to delivery and beyond.” Barston valiantly surmounted the problems of pregnancy and delivery. It was the “beyond” that threw her for a loop when she found that, despite every effort, she couldn’t breastfeed her son, Leo. This difficult encounter with nursing—combined with the overwhelming public attitude that breast is not only best, it is the yardstick by which parenting prowess is measured—drove Barston to explore the silenced, minority position that breastfeeding is not always the right choice for every mother and every child.

Part memoir, part popular science, and part social commentary, Bottled Up probes breastfeeding politics through the lens of Barston’s own experiences as well as those of the women she has met through her popular blog, The Fearless Formula Feeder. Incorporating expert opinions, medical literature, and popular media into a pithy, often wry narrative, Barston offers a corrective to our infatuation with the breast. Impassioned, well-reasoned, and thoroughly researched, Bottled Up asks us to think with more nuance and compassion about whether breastfeeding should remain the holy grail of good parenthood.

Reviews

“Barston [is] one of the most engaging, open-minded and articulate women on the subject of baby-feeding. Like her blog entries over the years, Bottled Up conveys more nuances than absolutes when it comes to the question of how and what to feed babies.”
— Babble

“Formula-feeding parents will find support, information, and encouragement in this well-researched and compassionate text, and breastfeeding moms and advocates will benefit from Barston’s authentic experience and perspective as well.”
— Publishers Weekly

“As a parenting and family journalist and a diligent researcher, Barston is uniquely qualified to write about this topic. Her book is a balance of experience and researched-based information about how postpartum depression, feminism, and media campaigns exert influence in such a personal realm.”
— Foreword Reviews

"Barston’s short and well-researched book . . . based on two years’ of interviews with pediatricians, researchers, sociologists, statisticians and fellow feminists will either help expectant moms make personal decisions, or potentially reassure them if they find themselves unable to breastfeed when they had wanted to do so." - Top 10 Books to Gift at a Baby Shower

— Brain, Child Magazine

“A sharp and measured critique of America’s discourse on breastfeeding.”
— New York Observer

"A compelling and occasionally moving book that spends as much time exploring the roots of America’s obsession with breastfeeding as with the breastfeeding itself. Barston has a gift for expressing difficult concepts, such as the confounding factors that complicate the study of the effects of breast milk, in an accessible way. . . . it should be required reading for all new parents, regardless of how they feed their infant, just because it does such a great job of interrogating the scientism that has come to permeate every child-rearing decision."
— spiked

“Barston's defense of bottlefeeding declares a moratorium on using motherhood as a dumping ground for our cultural anxieties and ambivalences. Through the deft interweave of personal narrative and sharp analysis, Bottled Up reveals how mother-blaming, sloppy science and deficient policies are far more pernicious that artificial milk." —Chris Bobel, author of The Paradox of Natural Mothering

“Bottled Up is a truly timely book. It is testament to how messed up things have become when it comes to motherhood that it even had to be written. The end result is a serious, engaging, challenging and also accessible account, drawing on the best of scholarship, science and journalism.”—Ellie Lee, Director of the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies, University of Kent

"“This is an informative and well-reasoned book that looks acutely at the meaning of baby feeding alternatives. It will be helpful to mothers, no matter what their choice."—Sydney Z. Spiesel, Ph.D. M.D., Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, Yale University School of Medicine

“This book is a must-read for every woman and man who is fed-up with the shaming and blaming of bottle-feeding parents. Barston explains with evidence, anecdote and humor why breast isn't always best and why women will never be free to enjoy their babies and map the maternal landscape until infant feeding decisions are no longer used as a test of good motherhood.”—Dr. Leslie Cannold, author of The Book of Rachael

Barston gives a heartfelt defense of mothers who go against the dogma of Breastfeeding Over All Else. Based on both personal experience and expert consultations, her conclusion: occasionally it's healthier not to breastfeed, and anyway don't stress about it. Surprisingly, such a reasonable point of view is poorly represented in the Mommy Wars. Barston's book is a welcome contribution."—Sam Wang, Ph.D., Princeton University, co-author of Welcome To Your Child's Brain: How the Mind Develops from Conception to College

Bottled Up

About the Book

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