Sources of our Becoming
Letters on breastfeeding

Our thoughts are not born in isolation. They are shaped by the stories we hear, the norms we inherit, and the silences we are taught to accept. In the realm of infant feeding, few topics are as emotionally charged and socially complex as breastfeeding. The way we think about it — as natural, as optional, as burdensome, as empowering — is deeply influenced by cultural narratives, medical discourse, marketing strategies, and generational beliefs. Breastfeeding activism challenges us to examine these sources critically. It asks: Who benefits from the way we think about breastfeeding? Whose voices are amplified, and whose are dismissed? By tracing the origins of our thoughts, we begin to reclaim them — and in doing so, we create space for informed, compassionate, and justice-driven conversations about infant nourishment and maternal autonomy. 


These letters are written by An Eerdekens, neonatologist and IBCLC lactation consultant, Melanie Miller, IBCLC lactation consultant, and Inge van Nistelrooij, care ethicist. They are an invitation to the reader: to walk alongside us, to discuss, to reflect, and to deepen. It is a call to plant seeds — seeds that highlight the significance of this ingenious piece of biology within our society. Breastfeeding is not merely about feeding a child; it is about the emergence of relationality, a defining trait of our humanity. It touches upon ecology, philosophy, women’s rights, and human rights. Through this exploration, we hope to shed light on its broader meaning and impact.

We wish the reader an enriching journey through these reflections, and we look forward to your response.




Email: gloedacademy@gmail.com

[continued]
20th of June, 2025
Letter by Mel


...Your words, your questions, this beautiful expansive intention – it calls to me, helps me envision finding a way back into these ideas after an uncomfortable period of alienation from what I believed and hoped would be my life’s work. I know this is a sentiment that is also shared between us, that each of us has had to pivot away from, or adjust to, destabilizing circumstances. That we have faced this in spaces of care… well, I suppose it does not surprise me, given the systems in which we all function.    

Perhaps this is why I feel a renewed sense of purpose in your company. There is an authenticity of spirit between us; I am simultaneously aware that we share an understanding of the boundaries of our concerns – those “barriers” often bandied about extensively (a profitable myopia, certainly) when we talk about feeding and caring for newborns – but, perhaps most especially, this letter to Inge and me, and our previous conversations, reveal an intimate awareness of and a commitment to the profound importance of reframing the discourse around breastfeeding and human lactation -  away from shame, control, the manufactured (and so, so profitable) false controversy of “choice,” and toward relationship, connection, and expansion – toward what I think bell hooks describes so evocatively as love. Considering the state of the world, the Sisyphean effort it takes to maintain a caring presence within systems of oppression, tending to this conversation feels like a radical, and necessary undertaking.

It's also why the format we’ve chosen – letters to one another – feels like such an elegant response to the pace of the discourse we are used to. You’ve pointed to this, An, to the economics of our bodies and our production, and to the incredible importance of the language we use when we talk about feeding babies. Upon encountering this paper last year, I was stunned by the realization that my own bedside care was full of capitalistic metaphors of production - supply and demand being the most obvious - that can shape perception and often sow tremendous doubt in a new lactating parent, and that seem quite antithetical to the relational care I was aiming to provide.

These realizations – the ways we are complicit in the systems we aim to shift – can be painful and can intrude on the depth of our passion for the topic and our steadfastness in the work. It’s why slowing down to write to you and Inge, reading and re-reading your letter, considering the art you’ve shared with us, your reflection on being in nature with your partner, and hearing birdsong, that sound that tells us we are safe: this is the contemplative place that heals those sore spots of complicity for me, and reminds me that we are in this together.

Rebecca Solnit writes, “I’ve come to recognize that changing the story, dismantling the stories that trap us, finding stories adequate to our realities, are foundational to finding our powers and our possibilities.” You’ve invited us to share new stories, An, and I’m so thrilled to see where we go from here.

With affection for you and for Inge,

Mel

Ps. This image is from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, its explanation I think is particularly lovely.







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