To feel annoyed trees were cut down to print this anti-breastfeeding article

[cherrymama]

In the latest edition of Mother and Baby magazine (I bought it for the free gift) the deputy editor has an article about breastfeeding. In it she says that she "couldn't be fagged" to breastfeed and that breastfeeding her newborn using breasts that had previously been used for sex would feel "creepy". And that even the health benefits of breastfeeding "wouldn't induce her to stick her nipple in her bawling baby's mouth."

I think her attitude is horrible! I understand many people try to breastfeed and don't manage, but to say that it is creepy is another thing.

credit people with ability to discern fact from keech.just because something gets printed doesn't make it right.like it or not is her subjective opinion.we have free press she can write what she wants

Feed your baby how you want. I just think it's important to make an educated choice.

If you just to use formula, purlease don't bleat about how guilty you feel in years to come. It's boring. Get on with it if that was your decision.

Also, please don't write a crappy article that includes the word "funbags" for god's sake. What a stupid idiot of a journalist. Absolutely done to raise profile of magazine and excite all those GMTV viewers who believe breast milk is as bad for your teeth as coca cola. She is a moron. And yes, I used formula. I just don't like idiots like this one.

Do you reckon she had an elective caesarian birth so as to avoid the creeps by having her baby through her vagina because vaginas are for sex, innit?

Bfing mothers have had decades of ridicule (bitty) thanks to the millions of pounds spent by formula producing convincing us that formula is as good as breast milk. How can it be when we don't know what constitutes bm entirely? And that our breasts are sexual only. And that breast feeding well, it's not not quite good enough, is it?

This article is one of the subjects of conversations today at 1pm on LBC radio with jeni barnet

This was discussed on loose women today

How wonderful that in rather less than 50 years the marketing departments of large pharmeceutical companies have managed to influence society to the extent that we have to even debate whether it's normal to feel that feeding your baby using your mammary glands is 'creepy'. Fantastic works fellas. I'll be sure to thank you next time I'm getting weird embarrassed stares in the park/cafe/ my own frigging living room.

Rather less congratulation to the editor of the magazine who should be finding out the meaning of career suicide about now.

Sorry I believe in freedom of speak so strongly believe the author of said article was aentitled to express whatever views she wants re breastfeeding. Plenty of women find bf unpleasant for various reasons creepiness included,are we to muzzle them all? Should mothers who give their dc McDonalds and crisps be banned from admitting to it?

It's a shame so much hot air isn't given to healthy eating in the under 5s as is given to bf. If we put half enough energy into healthy eating for children as we do for breast feeding then we really would see some results in reducing obesity,diabetes etc.

I feed it hysterical that time and time again this subject is discussed and obsessed over but the fact that many, many children have far too much crap in their diets just gets glossed over with a precious mummy label being tagged on any mum admitting to feeding their child healthily.

Double standards and the same old hot air over buggar all to be frank.

I've just read some of this article courtesy of yesterdays obserber.
How utterly refreshing! Apparntly there were lots of calls and emails to the magizine commenting positively on the article!
Anything that causes the increasingly vociforus bf lobby to be outraged is great by me. Wish there was more of it!

@MilanMae - good point !!

Healthy eating for under 5s doesn't seem to generate the same air time and passion.

As for this editor - she may have been brazen in her self expression, but negative feelings are a fact of life. The sanctimonious garbage that I've read on here only shuts women up. If they have uncomfortable feelings then they're going to suppress them some more.

This woman has been brave enough to flag something up about the dual function of breasts. It's never been discussed, and no-one will go there because it's not safe.

According to the Guardian article 1 in 100 women in the UK breastfeed to 6 months so yes, we certainly need some voices brave enough to speak out against this incredibly powerful lobby. Particularly in such an intelligent considered manner.

I'm going to make it my busisess to phone or email the magizine to congratulate them!

Of course we shouldn't forget that M and B's big advertisers are the formula producers this article promotes. How incredibly refreshing to see the editor putting their interests over those of children and mothers. Freedom of speech truly never served a greater purpose: Voltaire would be very proud.

Oh for goodness sake there are articles aplenty in those crappy baby magazines extolling the virtues of breast feeding. I should know a chucked bagfuls of them in the recycling bin.

And it's always important where there are many fact based articles to maintain some editorial balance by having some which are full of crap isn't it?

Yes it's important to let people voice their opinion otherwise we might as well be living under the Taliban.

So well said millamae. I think the breastfeeding lobby would quite like that though.
So sick of reading/having to listen to the propagandist drivel of the militant bf's.
I'm sure they'll be firbombing the editor of the magizine next!

it is a subjective opinion piece.wont necessarily deter bf

We've had 'nazis', 'fascists', 'mafia', 'extremists' and now it's Taliban and firebombing. Hohoho.

curryfreak - can you point to anything you have read about breastfeeding, from anyone even vaguely like a breastfeeding lobby, that is propagandist drivel?

I think the author of this article has every right to feel 'weirded out' by breastfeeding.

I see a parallel in the feelings of new dads 50 years ago: many fathers were MORTIFIED by the thought of doing things like changing nappies or pushing a pram. I suspect they saw it as a challenge to their masculinity. Because they're men innit. God forbid they should have to do either of these things in public - just shameful and embarrassing really.

And then the bloody feminists and lentil eaters came marching in saying that it was 'natural' for men to care for their babies, and that both babies and dads who didn't share these experiences were missing out in some way.

PAH! - Disgraceful. Perfectly normal for a man in those days to feel embarrassed to be seen doing 'women's work'. How appalling that people should put pressure on them to change nappies or push a pram. I mean, being a dad is hard enough already isn't it? Without being forced to do something which feels personally and culturally unfamiliar and uncomfortable. These dads must have been made to feel so inadequate by the feminist militia. I bet it tipped some of them over into postnatal depression and damaged their relationship with their babies.

Poor men.

"According to the Guardian article 1 in 100 women in the UK breastfeed to 6 months so yes, we certainly need some voices brave enough to speak out against this incredibly powerful lobby"

Errr, 10% of women are still breastfeeding when their baby is a year old. The 1% refers to those mums who are EXCLUSIVELY breastfeeding at 6 months.

Yes - the breastfeeding lobby is very vocal isn't it? Almost as vocal as the ff lobby, who spend VASTLY more on marketing their product and frankly are VASTLY more successful and RICHER than those involved in promoting breastfeeding (given that only a tiny, tiny percentage of women in the UK don't every buy breastmilk substitutes).

But then profit is always going to be more powerful motivator than concern about the health of babies. [smile

There have always been cultural practices or attitudes that get in the way of humans achieving optimal health. I'd have had more respect for the author if she'd spent some of the article examining WHY so many women in this country can't or won't breastfeed. IMO it's pathological to suppress a normal bodily function that can help keep your baby out of hospital because you feel 'embarrassed' or 'awkward'.

I wish she'd just admit that not wanting to breastfeed is a perfectly understandible reaction to being raised in a society where breastfeeding is largely invisible, where the extreme dependence of the breastfed baby on its mother is seen as being faintly appalling and highly inconvenient, and where breasts are sexually fetished, instead of trying to justify it in moral terms. It's cack.

@giveittomebabyboomboo

I can't tell if you're trying to open a thought-provoking meaningful discussion or making sure one never happens?

I thought Nihal Arthanayake summed it up quite well when they were talking about this on the Wright Stuff yesterday - all for freedom of speech but with that freedom comes responsibility, and the article was irresponsible.

FWIW I don't think the journo's view was unreasonable, given the FF culture we have now, but the article could've been written so much better.

"FWIW I don't think the journo's view was unreasonable, given the FF culture we have now"

That's the point I was trying to make - badly!

What the article didn't acknowledge in any way, shape or form was the social and cultural contexts which shape mothers' feelings about feeding their babies.

And in trying to present the her feelings as understandable and reasonable WITHOUT discussing the social context, the writer found herself justifying her decision in a way which was really irresponsible: by diminishing the benefits of breastfeeding and by implying that contempt and disgust for the practice is somehow 'natural' for many women. AND IT'S NOT - IT'S a socially conditioned and unnatural response to want to deliberately deny your baby access to something which has been central to the experience of infancy since we crawled out of the swamps.

what can I say. I am so eloquent

she actually made her view seem unreasonable, as you say by not discussing social reasons, and also by using terms like 'couldn't be fagged'. Numpty.

that's odd, I wonder why the is slightly higher up than ?