Text Right now human milk is experiencing major hype not only through the hashtag pumpingmom but also through the research of the milk pumping industry The milk pumping companies are very keen to emphasise the positive qualities of human milk and they fun

Right now human milk is experiencing major hype, not only through the hashtag #pumpingmom but also through the research of the milk pumping industry. The milk pumping companies are very keen to emphasise the positive qualities of human milk and they fund the relevant research. My mother couldn’t breastfeed me either, which is why the experience of feeding my child was such a sensitive topic for me. The exchange with my mother made this even clearer to me. Milk — especially women’s milk — is the only bread for children at the very beginning of their lives. This is pure stress for many mothers. They are often bread bringers, but not bread winners in the financial sense. The idea of nourishment has historically taken many turns between human, maternal milk and artificial baby food, influenced by the spirit of the times and the respective state interests. This has always had an influence on the role of women. In the 1960s, there was the hype of powdered milk, and it was totally en vogue to give the children only that and not to breastfeed them oneself, which of course also made one’s own occupation possible;  at the same time, it did not go hand in hand with the liberation from housework and care. However, people were more open to raising their children with the bottle. And then there was always this alternating between own and animal milk. 'Lactoland' tries to make these issues visible so that utopia can become reality.