World Breastfeeding Week
Steve thinks this kind of lactivist propoganda is too negative. Note the "booby donuts."
posted by Beth at 9:52 PM
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Steve thinks this kind of lactivist propoganda is too negative. Note the "booby donuts."
2 Comments:
Maybe I need to be educated here. What IS the problem? Do mothers in PT get grief for breastfeeding? Would people be happier if they kept it to one breast at a time?
Obviously I'm out of touch with the politics of nursing other than I know some communities are more supportive of it than others. And the whole sordid Nestle Infamil history of what? 25 years ago.
Actually, the prevailing culture in PT is pro-breastfeeding. My signs refer to tandem nursing, i.e. nursing more than one child simultaneously. For me, it hasn't been *literally* simultaneously, yet.
Most people don't have issue with very young babies nursing. Here in PT something like 90% of moms are breastfeeding when they leave the hospital. But the older the child, the more room for disapproval. Because of our puritan attitudes and sexualization of the breast, people aren't nearly as comfortable with a walking (or god forbid, talking) child nursing. Familial or societal disdain has caused many a breastfeedng mama to give up and go to the bottle. Members of my extended family have expressed their disgust at a toddler nursing. Of course, they never directly chastised *me* for nursing my toddler.
The older a child gets, the less likely he is to nurse in public. This is simply because many toddlers nurse only morning and night, or at naptime, etc. Last year my message was "Toddler nursing is normal." If people don't see it, they just don't know. And if people don't know, they don't do it, or support it.
The World Health Organization and others recommend breastfeeding continue up to and beyond age 2. Yet in the United States, only about one-third of babies are breastfed beyond six months.
And don't even get me started on the artificial baby milk manufacturers...
(so glad you asked, though!)
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