Thoughts on Breastfeeding
by Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
* Dr. Dettwyler's CV * Speaking Topics and Fees *
* Books * Commentaries * Links * Recommended books *
For the 2007-2008 academic year, 
Dr.
Dettwyler is teaching anthropology at the University of Delaware in Newark, DE. She continues her affiliation with Texas A&M University, where she taught from 1987 to 2000. She is the author of Dancing Skeletons: Life
and Death in West Africa, and the co-editor of Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives,
which includes her own two chapters "Beauty and the Breast: The Cultural
Context of Breastfeeding in the United States," and "A Time to Wean:
The Hominid Blueprint for a Natural Age of Weaning in Modern Human Populations."
In 2003 she co-edited an anthropology reader with Vaughn Bryant, titled Reflections on Anthropology: A Four-Field Reader. Initial results of her research on extended breastfeeding in the United States were published in Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology, Volume 47, Number 3, pp. 712-723 ("When to Wean: Biological Versus Cultural Perspectives"). She is currently writing an introductory cultural anthropology textbook, to be published by Waveland Press later this year (2009). The working title is "A Fraction of the Feast: Culture and Human Experience" -- but that may change. She is the author of many other scholarly articles. She is
a frequent speaker at universities, La Leche League
conferences, and lactation consultant conferences. She lives in Delaware
with her husband Steven, her sons Peter (23) and Alexander (17), Truman and Ulysses, both apricot standard poodles, and four cats. Her daughter Miranda (who was breastfed until she was 4 years of age) completed her Master's degree in gravitational physics at the University of Texas at Brownsville in 2004. Miranda and Mark Douglas Hannam, Ph.D., of New Zealand, were married on June 11, 2005 in Newark, DE. They spent 2.5 years in in Jena, Germany, during which time Miranda became fluent in German and became a mommy to Henry Graham Hannam, born July 3, 2006. In March of 2008, the moved to Cork, Ireland. At almost 3 years of age, Henry is a healthy and happy breastfed kid.
Books * Commentary * Links
Kathy Dettwyler's CV, Speaking Topics and Fees
Kathy's second book was co-edited with Patricia Stuart-Macadam,
and is entitled Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives If you are looking for
references in support of extended breastfeeding, you will find them in this
book! For more information on this book, click here. Kathy's third book is Reflections on Anthropology: A Four-Field Reader (McGraw-Hill, 2003). It is a collection of readings in anthropology for use as a supplement to a main textbook in introductory anthropology courses. She also wrote the foreword to another
book, published in 1999, Breastfeeding: A Mother's Gift, by Pamela
K. Wiggins, IBCLC. Here are some links to places who link to this
site, useful breastfeeding Web sites, books Dr. Dettwyler likes, or other
Web sites that she enjoys.
Kathy Dettwyler's Curriculum Vita
Speaker Topics and Fees
Books * Commentary
* Links * Bookstore
Dr. Dettwyler's first book, Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa (Waveland Press) , won the prestigious 1995 Margaret Mead Award, given jointly by the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology. The purpose of the award is to honor books/authors that make anthropology accessible to the public, and with an emphasis on applied anthropology (using anthropological knowledge and perspectives to solve real world problems, in this case child malnutrition in Africa). For a more detailed description of the book, click here.
* Books * Commentary
* Links *
Read what Kathy Dettwyler has had to say
about various breastfeeding and parenting topics since 1995!
To send feedback on any of this material to the
author, email Dr. Dettwyler (kadettwyler@hotmail.com).
Books * Commentary *
Links
Books * Commentary
* Links
Last updated
September 3, 2012Kathy Dettwyler (please direct
info on broken links to Kathy, as well as feedback). Contents copyright ©1995-2012 Sue Ann Kendall and Kathy
Dettwyler. The contents of these pages may be printed out for personal
use. Further distribution is prohibited. The dancing skeleton image, copyright
Phyllis Hughes, is used with permission.