About this item
Pediatricians say you should but it's okay if you don't. The hospital says, "Breast is best," but sends you home with formula "just in case." Your sister-in-law says, "Of course you should!" Your mother says, "I didn't, and you turned out just fine." Celebrities are photographed nursing in public, yet breastfeeding mothers are asked to cover up in malls and on airplanes. Breastfeeding is a private act, yet everyone has an opinion about it. How did feeding our babies get so complicated?Journalist and infant health advocate Kimberly Seals Allers breaks breastfeeding out of the realm of "personal choice" and shows our broader connection to an industrialized food system that begins at birth, the fallout of feminist ideals, and the federal policies that are far from family friendly. The Big Letdown uncovers the multibillion-dollar forces battling to replace mothers' milk and the failure of the medical establishment to protect infant health. Weaving together research and personal stories with original reporting on medicine, big pharma, and hospitals, Kimberly Seals Allers shows how mothers and babies have been abandoned by all the forces that should be supporting families from the start--and what we can do to help.
About the Author
Kimberly Seals Allers has a vision for shifting the experience of birth and breastfeeding for all women. Kimberly is an award-winning journalist and author turned global maternal and infant health advocate. A former writer at Fortune magazine and senior editor at Essence, Kimberly's own motherhood journey inspired her to pivot her creative focus and analytical mind to writing about motherhood and the intersection of race, culture, policy and commercial interests. Her first book, The Mocha Manual to a Fabulous Pregnancy(Amistad/HarperCollins) , a first-of-its-kind pregnancy guidebook for black women from a sociological perspective, was released in 2006 and nominated for an NAACP Image Award. The top-selling Mocha Manual series continued with The Mocha Manual to Turning Your Passion into Profit and The Mocha Manual to Military Life. In 2017, Kimberly turned her attention to the issue of the culture of infant feeding in the U.S., writing The Big LetDown-How Medicine, Big Business and Feminism Undermine Breastfeeding (St. Martin's Press) . The book examines the societal norms, commercial interests, and policy gaps that influence how women feed their infants and why that matters to our society and public health. A frequent contributor to The Washington Post, Huff Post and New York Times, Kimberly travels the world speaking about her big ideas for transforming the motherhood journey and sharing findings of nearly a decade of on-the-ground community work. A divorced mother of two, Kimberly loves traveling with her teenage children and taking Zumba classes.
