Unbuttoned: Women Open Up About the Pleasures, Pains, and Politics of Breastfeeding - Softcover

Connolly, Maureen; Dana Sullivan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 155832397X ISBN 13: 9781558323971

Publisher: Harvard Common Press, 2009

Synopsis

A collection of women's thoughts about the pleasures, pains, and politics of breastfeeding.

About this title

About the Author:

Dana Sullivan, also a contributor to Unbuttoned, cowrote The Essential C-Section Guide with Maureen Connolly. She is a regular contributor to Fit Pregnancy, O: The Oprah Magazine, Woman's Day, and Health. She has also written for Outside, Real Simple, More, Self, Shape, and Glamour. She lives in Reno, Nevada, with her husband and their three children. Maureen Connolly is coauthor, with Dana Sullivan, of The Essential C-Section Guide, voted the number two parenting book of 2004 by Amazon.com. She is the editorial director of RealSavvyMoms.com and is a writer and producer for the award-winning public television series Real Moms, Real Stories, Real Savvy. She is the former health editor for Redbook and Parenting magazines and has also written for Parenting, Redbook, Self, Family Circle, and BabyCenter.com. Connolly has appeared on national television, including CNN and The Today Show. She lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with her husband, their three boys, and their dog Kelsey.

From The Washington Post:

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Rachel Saslow Much like nursing itself, this anthology on the topic starts out rough and gets easier as it goes. Part one, "Latching On," consists of five essays and a poem full of passages detailing excruciating experiences like this one, from novelist Julia Glass: "My darling baby was mauling me. He was getting the milk he needed . . . but he was clamping onto my breast like a toothless piranha on steroids." Many of the 25 contributors, mothers bombarded by the slogan "breast is best," describe the pressure to nurse and their feelings of shame if it doesn't work out. Dana Sullivan, who coedited the book with fellow journalist Maureen Connolly, recalls a friend saying, "My babies have never had that poison," when she sees Sullivan preparing a bottle of formula. Another mother shares a more humorous experience: While breastfeeding on an airplane, San Francisco writer Leslie Crawford accidentally sprayed milk on the man sitting in front of her. She felt embarrassed, yes, but also proud of her abundance: "I mean, that was really something, to have shot that far and that high." Anecdotes like this one offer solace and camaraderie to the many mothers out there confronted with, as Glass puts it, "the rude surprise of a lifetime."
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard Common Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 155832397X
• ISBN 13: 9781558323971
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240