Breastfeeding is not about love, it’s about labor and public health”: readings of a Brazilian lactivism and its interface with contemporary sexual and reproductive rights

Abstract

This article seeks to reflect on the discourses of women who advocate lactation in current Brazilian society, their designs, bases and consequences for society. To explore their ideas about breastfeeding practices and their social importance, we will analyze posts, images and media content from the social network Instagram, produced between 2019 and 2022, by 11 Brazilian breastfeeding activists. They are middle-class women, from different regions of Brazil, who at the time were between 24-41 years old, had access to the internet and wrote about breastfeeding, care and work. In general, these women claim the recognition of breastfeeding as a work of collective interest, as a public health issue and a sexual and reproductive right to be guaranteed by the State. In this sense, the article dialogues with the feminist theory that has guided the subject and expands the perspective of health to the practice of breastfeeding.