Mother's milk. A psychoanalyst looks at breastfeeding

This chapter examines the complex experiences and meanings of breastfeeding for women engaged in it. My review of the sparse literature to date reveals that understanding of breastfeeding has been limited largely to an oral perspective. The sociology and physiology of lactation are sketched here to provide a background for the multifaceted psychic experiences reported by breastfeeding women. Within this more complex context it can be demonstrated that breastfeeding kindles aspects of all the psychosexual stages, touching off a cascade of fantasies and feelings in the nursing woman. Case vignettes also illustrate the broad clinical utility of an interest in breastfeeding. The question arises as to why there has been such reticence on the part of both patients and analysts regarding breastfeeding. Paying attention to this activity can yield rich and useful information about the nursing mother's unconscious attitudes. Issues of power, competence, erotism, and aggression are discussed in addition to those of orality and nurturance.