Introduction

This edited volume brings together work from the ‘core participant’ attendees at the UK ESRC-funded seminar series ‘Social experiences of breastfeeding: building bridges between research and policy’, which ran during 2015 and 2016. We wanted to share some of the dialogue and enthusiasm with people who could use it in their everyday life/work supporting women who breastfeed their babies. Each academic contributor (authors of the section chapters) presented their work during one of the six seminars. Most of the UK-based presenters also attended and took part in the other seminars, so we had an ongoing conversation over the life of the series.

Some of the policy/practice contributors (authors of the section commentary pieces) also presented work at a seminar. The others attended most of the events, and they have provided insight and reflection into the usefulness of the academic work for policy makers and practitioners. We have interpreted ‘practitioner’ in the widest sense, and use it to refer to breastfeeding support delivered by health professionals, breastfeeding peer and other supporters, infant feeding leads in NHS hospitals/community services, and local authority managers.

The chapters in this book build on the seminar presentations themselves (edited audio recordings are available via the seminar series website if you want to get a flavour of the atmosphere). When we were planning the book, we grouped the chapters together and linked them with the commentators. There were many different versions before we settled on this arrangement, as there are many connections between chapters in different sections, and across the book. In this conclusion, we make some of these links; there are many others that readers will draw themselves, and we’d be happy to hear from you to continue the conversation.

The seminar series, and this book, set out to address the following questions:

• • How does attending to the micro-practices and affective and embodied experiences of breastfeeding women advance extant knowledge about the reasons for breastfeeding cessation?

• • How can we further understanding about inequalities in breastfeeding rates by focusing on the nuances of day-to-day breastfeeding?

• • How might an increased understanding of these perspectives influence policy?