Caroline Deacon, breastfeeding counsellor, is not surprised when fathers are anti-breastfeeding.

Research has consistently found that the biggest influence on a woman’s choice of feeding method is her partner’s attitude 1.  If the father-to-be has negative feelings about breastfeeding, then the mother is more likely to choose formula. Researchers have concluded that health workers need to spend more time educating men to understand the benefits of breastfeeding 2. But is it enough to simply persuade those reluctant men that breast-milk will benefit their off-spring? Isn’t this begging the question  “why don’t men automatically opt for breastfeeding anyway?”

We don’t know why some men dislike the idea of their babies being fed at the breast. Some give reasons such as breastfeeding being “bad for women’s breasts” or that it would “make their breasts ugly”. Many fathers also dislike the idea of  partners breastfeeding in public or in front of strangers 3.  It is interesting to speculate where some of these prejudices come from. I believe that there are deep cultural and psychological influences at work here, and until we address these openly and honestly, many men will remain unconvinced.
  
It is only in the Western world that breastfeeding is perceived as “difficult, problematic” - something to “have a go at” with perhaps dubious results - a bit like hang-gliding or skiing. It is also only in the Western world that breasts have such an erotic focus. Men in our culture are supposed to be obsessed with breasts. Adolescent boys see their first goal as “getting a feel” of a girl’s breasts. Comedy  - often described as dealing with issues of cultural tension - routinely use breasts as a snigger factor. Many other cultures view breasts as everyday, functional parts of the body - not here. Saggy breasts are a turn-off for us. In Papua New Guinea, by contrast, a witches’ curse condemns the breast to “stay pert and upright like a young girl’s for ever.”4

Small surprise then, that breastfeeding creates such unease. In breastfeeding, the adult male is absent. The pleasure derived, if recognised at all, is experienced by the mother and the baby. This is not what breasts are for in our culture’s view of the world. It is interesting to note that when the naked breast became visible in our society - during the so called “sexual revolution”, this was the point at which breastfeeding rates hit an all time low. Now that pornography is being challenged and driven out of public view, breastfeeding is coming back out of the closest. Coincidence? But when breastfeeding overlaps with the public (male) domain, it is still vilified 5. A recent episode of the American cult sit-com Friends featured one of the men inadvertently putting expressed breast milk in his coffee and then violently spitting it out when he realised what had happened. Why should drinking the expressed milk of a human being (which in fact is natural for us) be disgusting, while drinking the expressed milk of another mammal not be revolting?

Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein, two of the most influential psychoanalytic theorists of this century, both placed breastfeeding as fairly central to our adult sexual development. Freud believed that babies are sexual beings, and in the beginning “sexual activity attaches itself to one of the functions serving the purpose of self-preservation,” namely breastfeeding. This auto-eroticism continues in thumb sucking and for adults, in kissing and smoking.6

If there is any truth in the psychoanalytic belief in childhood sexuality, then we must carry into our roles as adults and parents, memories of and feelings about breastfeeding as it affected us as children. eg At the time Freud was writing, the Western world was beginning to disrupt our natural breastfeeding inheritance, seeking replacements for breastmilk, writing previously unneeded rules for regulating time at the breast. Perhaps what Freud had to say is relevant to a world which inhibits that early sensual pleasure.

As women, our attitudes to our partners as they become fathers does not undergo a profound change. Whether we viewed them as lovers, protectors, or as companions and friends - none of these perceptions need alter much during our own metamorphoses into mothers. For men, however, they must learn to cope with vast physical changes, emotional and hormonal changes, and probably sexual changes. By the time birth arrives, they will be confronted with their partner’s most intimate areas becoming public property. Many women have spoken of the intrusion and sense of alienation they may feel as their genitals are exposed to all and sundry - surely our partners must experience some of this too?  And while we may think our expanded, swollen breasts are alien, what would the partner who perhaps took erotic pleasure in them feel now? He has to switch off a life time of conditioning, of boob jokes and sniggers. Instead he is expected to view these breasts, these objects of erotic fantasy and pleasure as now as functional as udders or worse still, as entering into an erotic relationship with someone else. Perhaps this is why some men have more of a problem with breast-fed sons than daughters.

On the whole, most men cope with this switch from whore to Madonna, or less provocatively, mistress to mother very well. The paternal instinct is obviously strong enough to override years of cultural conditioning. Yet, if they do exists, the feelings of jealousy and suppressed desire may create conflict as the breastfeeding baby turns into a breastfeeding child. Very few women in the west now breastfeed their babies for long. In most parts of the world, it is the norm for children to be fed for up to four or five years. In the west, where breasts’ eroticism is separate from the sensual pleasures of breastfeeding, so that feeding is “justified” on nutritional bases only, breastfeeding a toddler is seen as “kinky”.  Even if we as mothers can challenge in our own minds, our perception that our breasts are sexual and we don’t want to be incestuous sensualitty sexual with our babies, how well do our partners make this adjustment? It seems to take an  exceptionally supportive father to encourage breastfeeding beyond the narrow boundaries set for survival only, and onwards into the unsafe areas of breastfeeding for mainly comfort and pleasure.

There have already been a few useful things written about sex and breastfeeding. 7   I feel we need to address the sexual quagmire surrounding breastfeeding far more. It is not enough to hand fathers statistics on the composition of breastmilk and then stand back and wait for cultural attitudes to breastfeeding to change. On a personal level, partners need to be open with each other about their deeper feelings about breastfeeding. And for breastfeeding counsellors, perhaps part of the challenge of creating a “breastfeeding culture” is to challenge society’s perceptions of breasts and sexuality.

1. Scott et al 1997 The influence of reported paternal attitudes on the decision to breast-feed. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, vol. 33, no 4, Aug., pp 305-307 and others.