Hot , Cold, Depleted or Deluded?Mothering knowledges and babies’ bodies in the interstices of Chinese and Western medicines

Kelly Dombroski

“How can the relations between multiple knowledge practices best be engaged with?”

Multiple knowledge practices in Northwest China:

“How do mothers and others come to 'know' about their babies' feeding needs?”

Three Strategies• Identifying moments of awkward

engagement• Beginner’s stance/deliberate not-

knowing• Tracing discursive genealogies

Post-partum feeding practices

“First feed takes place in the delivery room,

if mother and baby both healthy”

“On the second day, the doctor told me to feed the child”

“Health and disease are directly associated with the balance of yin and yang

… yin represents the passive and receding aspect of nature whereas yang represents the active, advancing aspects of nature. It is believed that yin and yang exist at the emotional, physical, interpersonal/ societal, and ecological levels

… the two forces are thought to be interdependent, and the imbalance between them results in disease.” (Chen and Swartzman, 2001: 391)

Traditional Chinese Medicine

From the Song Dynasty (960-1279AD) text A Thorough Discussion of the Hygiene of Small Children (cited in Hsiung, 1995)

“For all women with milk, it is blood and vitality that are transformed into milk…

Traditional Chinese Medicine

• TCM = delayed first feed. Few problems traditionally – could be up to 3 days while mother recovers.

• Biomedicine concern babies will become hypoglycemic and unable to feed – some actual cases especially in rural areas.• Treated with sugar water (spooned)

• TCM + Bio = conceptual opening for non-breastmilk substances.• Artificial formula means baby will not be

hypoglycemic, mother will have chance to recover.

TCM and Biomedicine: First feed

Growing and Changing“If the milk is of good

quality it would be four o’clock [before the baby needs to feed at night] Otherwise it’s once every hour or two hours.”

“In this circumstance, she still breastfed for five or six months, each time only a couple of mouthfuls here and there, as necessary. In this kind of situation the mother can still persist.”

“For all women with milk, it is blood and vitality that are transformed into milk…

Regarding her happiness, drink, food, and all other restrictions, it is appropriate to restrain carefully. If she is unrestrained and uncontrolled, and nurses a child in such a state, the child will contract an illness.”

From the Song Dynasty (960-1279AD) text A Thorough Discussion of the Hygiene of Small Children (cited in Hsiung, 1995)

“At one time, breastfeeding my baby, it took the whole night, she could not stop. At that time we didn’t have any money. We have meat, pork, and she had serious diarrhoea. Mutton and beef are extremely good.

I told her father, ‘could you buy some mutton, the baby does not have enough. It hurts a lot when she sucks my nipple’. Then he bought some mutton for me, he bought three jin! (1.5 kilograms)

That day, when I asked my husband to buy some mutton, after I had the mutton soup — I had it over three or four meals — then the breastmilk was so good. So good. Just in the right way.”

“With family members, um, her mood… sometimes, she will be anxious.This child,she has become a mother to, in one fell swoop become a mothertransforming her role.This child — she becomes aware of this child.It seems perhaps she cannot take care

of a childIt could become sick— could this child become sick?Could it have heart disease?She is worried about things like this,dispirited.”

TCM and Biomedicine: nourishment as baby grows

• TCM= low supply/bad milk exists and can be easily treated through diet, rest, acupuncture, herbs

• Biomedicine= low supply/bad milk does not/rarely exists. Just feed the baby more frequently.

• TCM + Biomedicine = gap for breastmilk substitutes• Woman feels there is a milk quality or

quantity problem but is offered no treatment options bar ‘more feeding’

• Often results in supplementing with formula (sometimes temporary)

Weaning and first solids

“Our attempts to improve complementary feeding practices by promoting ‘scientific infant feeding’ (kexue weiyang) were met with resistance from many mothers, even though we emphasised adding only locally produced or otherwise easily available foods. Although the mothers could learn and cite the better weaning practices, they did not always follow them.”

Nutritionist Georgia Guldan, 2000

TCM and Biomedicine: First Solids and Weaning • TCM= focus on digestion and avoiding

overburdening digestive system• Biomedicine= stark contrast between

‘exclusive breastfeeding’ and solids for nutrition

• TCM + biomedicine = gap for breastmilk substitutes • because artificial formula is both

easily digestible and nutritious• Because women have already ‘failed’

at exclusive breastfeeding

Concluding thoughts

Knowing is geographically, culturally and socially located – but still aspires to universality.

We can identify travelling universals through identifying moments of awkward engagement between them.

Sometimes we can understand more through adopting a deliberate stance of not-knowing.