A piece of research that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny is piling the guilt on to mothers
Was Huw Edwards breastfed? One wouldn’t normally speculate about an eminent BBC newsreader’s infant nutrition, but what with the disclosure that his Oxbridge rejection still rankles, and new research suggesting inadequately breastfeeding mothers could put their children at academic risk, it might be time to ask just how much intellectual disappointment is, if we’re honest, women’s fault.
The Times was so delighted with the idea that it wrote a whole leader in support: “Breast Boost: It’s increasingly clear that breastfeeding makes for brainy babies”. More breastfeeding, it claimed, with the kind of confidence you simply don’t get from a year on formula, “would benefit everybody”. Compliant mothers might want to memorise a few lines in case they come up against a different academic finding: that one of the many reasons women abandon it is other people’s disgust and public sexualisation of breastfeeding.
