Jul 22, 2010

Fresh Milk

the Secret Life of Breasts 
by Fiona Giles

I read this book back when I was (of course!) nursing my own child. It's a collection of anecdotes and stories that look at how breastfeeding is viewed in different cultures and stretches aside the curtain of taboo around it. Some of the stories and information are helpful and interesting, other chapters were (to me at least) very eccentric and bizarre. There are stories of nursing toddlers, the issues of breastfeeding in public, one incident of a mother who discovered her child had been breastfed by another woman at daycare! There there are stranger ones, of men comforting their babies by suckling them, of putting breastmilk into recipes- like homemade ice cream. Even speculations on breastmilk being sold in supermarkets. The chapters I found strangest and even disturbing broached subjects like women's erotic fantasies about their own breasts, or porn films starring lactating women. If you're interested in the subject of breastfeeding, this book is certainly an eye-opener that will entertain and shock just as much as it inspires! 

Rating: 3/5 ........ 267 pages, 2003

More opinions at:
SMS Book Reviews
Breeding Imperfection
Guerrilla Momma Medicine

8 comments:

  1. Wow! It sounds like that book is loaded with information. I just read of a woman who nurses her 8 year old.

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  2. I'm all for people nursing as long as they can (I nursed until she was one and a half) but eight seems a bit too much!

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  3. I read a blog once where a man decided to eat his cereal doused with breast milk. I thought that was really very creepy, and he mentioned that it really grossed him out too. I keep asking myself why he did it if he thought it would gross him out.

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  4. Interesting?! Not sure I want to read a whole book about it, but do like to gossip with other mums in private :-)

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  5. Breastmilk on cereal? Eww. Why did he, really? if he wanted to know what it tasted like, he didn't need a bowlful!

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  6. Hahahaha, I'm double-grossed out by the breast milk in cereal story because I don't put milk on my cereal. Yuck, yuck (this book sounds interesting!), yuck.

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  7. This one sounds fascinating. Odd, but fascinating!

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  8. Sounds interesting. Bit freaked out over the comment of breast milk in ceral ewww.

    I am currently breastfeeding my son so probably relevant to me, but at the moment I seem to only be interested in non-fiction baby how to books.

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