Subramani Supriya
Sydney Health Ethics, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
Asian Bioeth Rev. 2023 Oct 26;16(2):249-266. doi: 10.1007/s41649-023-00259-0. eCollection 2024 Apr.
The key objective of this paper is to emphasize the importance of acknowledging breastfeeding as an embodied social practice within interventions related to breastfeeding and lactation and illustrate how this recognition holds implications for public health ethics debates. Recent scholarship has shown that breastfeeding and lactation support interventions undermine women's autonomy. However, substantial discourse is required to determine how to align with public health goals while also recognizing the embodied experiences of breastfeeding and lactating individuals. Presently, interventions in this realm predominantly revolve around health-related messaging and the promotion of individual behaviors, often neglecting the systemic and structural factors that influence choices and practices. I closely examine breastfeeding interventions in India, in particular Mothers' Absolute Affection health promotion program, along with breastfeeding narratives. I argue that for such interventions to evolve, they must acknowledge the intrinsic embodied social nature of breastfeeding during their design and implementation. Furthermore, it is important to emphasize that achieving equity and justice objectives necessitates moving beyond the confines of both conventional public health frameworks and frameworks solely centered on private choices. Instead, a more encompassing approach that embraces the concept of embodiment should be adopted.
本文的关键目标是强调在与母乳喂养和泌乳相关的干预措施中，承认母乳喂养是一种具体的社会实践的重要性，并说明这种认识如何对公共卫生伦理辩论产生影响。最近的学术研究表明，母乳喂养和泌乳支持干预措施损害了女性的自主权。然而，需要大量的讨论来确定如何在与公共卫生目标保持一致的同时，也认识到母乳喂养和泌乳个体的具体经历。目前，这一领域的干预措施主要围绕与健康相关的信息传递和个人行为的推广，往往忽视了影响选择和实践的系统和结构因素。我仔细研究了印度的母乳喂养干预措施，特别是“母亲的绝对关爱”健康促进项目，以及母乳喂养的相关叙述。我认为，为了使此类干预措施得到发展，它们必须在设计和实施过程中承认母乳喂养内在的具体社会性质。此外，必须强调的是，要实现公平和正义目标，就必须超越传统公共卫生框架和仅以私人选择为中心的框架的局限。相反，应该采用一种更具包容性的方法，接受具体体现这一概念。
