NEUROBIOLOGY AND THE QUEERNESS OF KINSHIP 109middle- class families employed the poor. Currently, women’s reticence to
breastfeed is viewed as a global health crisis. Even in countries where the
majority of birth mothers now initiate breastfeeding, such as the United
States and United Kingdom, most do so for much shorter than the rec-
ommended periods, and many abandon the practice earlier than initially
planned (Andrew and Harvery 2011).^9 There is a considerable public health
literature addressing the reasons for women’s reluctance to breastfeed. In
addition to economic and social factors, women describe a multiplicity of
psychological and physical reasons. While some mothers, like Churchland,
have positive experiences with lactation, others describe the practice as
trying, difficult, painful, disruptive, unpleasant, or even violent (Hurley et
al. 2008; Kelleher 2006; Schmied and Barclay 1999; Thomson and Dykes
2011; Tucker et al. 2011). Some also note the incongruity between natural-
izing discourses about breastfeeding and their real- life experiences, which
can foster feelings of failure or guilt (Burns et al. 2010; Mozingo et al. 2000;
Schilling et al. 2008). Among those who report success, breastfeeding is not
generally described as seamlessly, effortlessly, or automatically harmonious.
Instead, mothers portray it as a learned competency (Schilling et al. 2008),
one that involves a “complex interactive process” (Leff et al. 1994, 99) of
gradually developing a successful routine through trial and error.
Biobehavioral Synchrony
The adaptionist theory argues that a maternal- infant bond has both its
quality and its object determined by evolution. Alternatively, embodied
relations can be understood as processes that develop in specific tempo-
ral, spatial, and interactive contexts, with varied outcomes. Ruth Feldman
takes this view to argue that hormonally supported affective bonds de-
velop through close interpersonal interaction. She conceptualizes this in
terms of biobehavioral synchrony. Synchrony refers to the idea that bodies
in close relationships become attuned to each other’s sensory, motor, and
behavioral cues. Synchrony highlights “the time-^ based component in in-
terpersonal encounters and emphasizes the ongoing organization of social
behavior into repetitive- rhythmic sequences” (Feldman 2007, 340). Intra-
specific synchrony has been observed in animals, for example, in group
actions of birds and fish that demand micro- coordination. Humans, too,