Abstract:
This article approaches the discourses of the national policy on breastfeeding in Brazil today, emphasizing underexplored meanings in its educational materials. The theoretical and methodological perspectives adopted were the Semiology of Social Discourses, which understands discourse as a constitutive/constituent of social power relations, and Gender Studies, and its questioning of the naturalization of the binary female/male division as structural to a fixed essence of beings. The analysis identified how materials continue to emphasize the importance of breastfeeding for children’s health, omitting or treating stereotypically women's perspectives on the practice. The complexity of breastfeeding is seldom addressed, and weaning as a subjective transition in the mother-child relationship and their social world is ignored.
Keywords:
Breastfeeding; Breast-feeding; Discourses; Silences; Weaning