Infant breast- or bottle-feeding and social position: four ways to be a mother

Promoting infant health through the implementation of a diet adapted to each of the child’s development stages is one of the Public Health objectives expressed in the French National Program of Health Nutrition (NPHN). This objective is part of a long-term perspective. It follows the policies to combat infant mortality that were implemented during the 19th century and continued during the 20th century with the creation of Mother and Child Care Centres (MCCC) in 1945. Promoting breast-feeding is one of the specific actions of the second French NPHN (2006-2010). France has lower incidences and durations of breast-feeding than other countries in spite of a decline in bottle-feeding immediately after birth since the beginning of the 1990s. A sociological approach to new-born baby feeding, combining the social determinants of the mothers’ choices, evidences four types of maternal behaviours, the respective place of recommendations of infancy specialists and other sources (in particular the family), the place of practical or symbolical advice and obstacles to the application of these prescriptions. More frequent in the lower classes, the first two types of maternal behaviours show a more systematic use of bottle-feeding, although these women are distinguished by their claim to a “traditional” upbringing on the one hand and a reluctance to justify their choices beyond the constraints of life style on the other. The practice of breast-feeding is at the heart of the other two model types which mainly concern the upper or middle classes. Particularly in the case of upward social mobility, the scrupulous application of professional recommendations may be at odds with family advice, while knowledge of infant care, linked to prior experiences, enables them to keep some distance with nursing rules and gives them more flexibility in the way they are applied.