51

Based on two ethnographic studies conducted in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, this paper provides a comparative analysis of breastfeeding expert knowledge and practices, amongst independent midwives offering holistic care at home and midwives and nurses working in a hospital. The authors explore how parents integrate the gendered logics of medical knowledge on breastfeeding through their interactions with health professionals. Despite the apparent separation between out-of-hospital or “natural” childbirth and hospital or “technocratic” childbirth, the two groups of professionals share a naturalistic approach to breastfeeding, and a heteronormative and differentialist perspective on parental roles and responsibilities, consistent with the Swiss socioeconomic and political context.