What is the medical gaze?

The way we talk about breastfeeding has changed a lot over the last century or so, and it’s not happened by accident. This month we’ll be focusing on infant feeding from a societal and anthropological POV - mostly thinking about how something called the “Medical Gaze” takes ownership of normal experiences and pathologises them.

The Medical Gaze takes things that communities used to hold together and moves them into clinical spaces where they become measured, monitored, and managed through the lens of a problem to be solved. 

When we apply this to breastfeeding, we see subtle but significant changes… cluster feeding, night time wakings, babies who latch for comfort all stop being normal, and we start to see symptoms instead. 

And of course, we’re not always wrong - a very fussy baby who is feeding constantly is one of the signs that something might need looking at more closely. The medical gaze isn’t inherently bad - it teaches us to spot symptoms that are real. The problem is that it isn’t very good at recognising something that is within the range of normal if it can also be a symptom. It removes the nuance that is so important when looking at infant feeding. 

And what happens when something is a problem inside this sort of system? It needs diagnosing and fixing. Not by your community wise woman or midwife, or your mum. But by someone with a qualification and a lanyard. A Doctor, a paediatrician. An IBCLC. (Yes, I’m saying that as an IBCLC.)

What does that look like in infant feeding? Formula. A product carefully marketed since day one to look and feel complex. From the way it used to be made up under a Doctor’s instruction, to the language still seen on the packaging today. Infant Formula is a genuinely lifesaving intervention that industry has commercialised so well most people in the UK stop breastfeeding before they want to and then blame themselves for it.

 “I wasn’t making enough milk.” Is the calling card of the medical gaze intertwined deeply with capitalism. Create the problem - blame the individual - sell them the solution.