Chestfeeding/breastfeeding infographic

[MilkSpill]

This has pushed me over the edge today. I'm not sure where it originated but it was shared by The Milk Meg on FB.

The chest feeding stuff really bothers me. It's not just women being erased, now it's babies too. Breastfeeding is not a performance to validate parental gender dysphoria. It's a human right of infants and women, which is systemically denied or used as a weapon against us. I'm not sure if I'm angrier at the TRA pushing this rubbish, or the women's advocates who are embracing it.

stillathing You're probably right.

Oh bloody hell! Where will it stop!?

Why would a solo mum be exclusively pumping?

I have to say breastfeeding totally killed any sexual feelings for me both times (well that plus birth I guess). Since it also suppresses ovulation that's not surprising. Modern western culture has made breasts into something sexual and they really aren't inherently sexual. They are a food source for babies. That is their function. Not all cultures see them as sexual.

Men trying to breastfeed is sick in so many ways and should be considered child abuse.

I wonder why it isn’t considered child abuse?

This makes me so furious I don't know where to begin.
I'm just going to say child abuse. What has any of this got to do with babies and their health and needs?
😡🤯🔥

Not to mention the need of postnatal mothers of course.

Ijustwannadance Exactly that.

Inclusive breastfeeding??? OMG I've heard it all

Funny how 'people' are competing over feeding the baby. Not my experience IRL.

Also, hate the term chestfeeding. Do transmen have an aversion of their breasts being called breasts? Men get breast cancer, are we to rename it (less accurately) chest cancer? What's the problem with words meaning stuff?

I actually don't think it's necessarily abusive unless it negatively affects the baby's nutrition or if the man is obsessive about it. Given that breasts are not inherently sexual, women's or men's, I can't see any particular reason why it would be wrong for a dad to let his baby suck on his nipple for comfort (given they'll suck fingers, dummies, whatever). So following from that, if its possible (and safe, both in terms of quality of product and the health of the parent) to induce some lactation, I can't quite see why letting the baby suckle that parent it would be a terrible thing. Maybe the heat has addled my brain and I'm missing something.

Thank God I no longer work as a midwife. It would take about five minutes for me to get disciplined, sacked and struck off if I was faced with this.

I have nothing but contempt for any professionals encouraging and enabling this.

So in order to include people, we must put the baby last and interrupt the mother's milk supply.

Also, how offensive is this to women who wanted to breastfeed but couldn't? Oh, a man can lactate, don't worry yourself.

Thanks for the

I can't see this pic becoming real life practice, I just can't. When you get right down to it, surely most midwives will put the mother (by which I mean the one who gestated a baby) first? That way you prioritise the baby too, since I can't believe milk from a female wouldn't be better and more chemical-free than milk from a male.

Mother expressing in the middle of the night for a baby in NICU, while dad sits mooing at the other end of the couch - I can laugh about it now.

So please can someone tell me, in the pictures where a breastpump is shown, what is the partner status and sex of the parent/s?

Because I reckon (as a mother who breastfed 4 kids till they were 3 and also worked and expressed by hand) that theres more to this than meets the eye

An hour late today...

What do you mean Alexa?

I went to bed last night genuinely puzzling over why some of the women in the comments were so invested in the fact that males can lactate. One woman was quite annoyed about it and started shouting at everyone, calling them turnips

Even the Milk Meg herself seems heavily invested in it. Why?!?

I came here again to say what ineedacup already said. Rampant sexualization of breasts means feeding in public is so much harder than it needs to be. And that the gender neutral word breast becomes a no go area for some in case of offense. Ffs. Its not like we call it titfeeding!

‘Titfeeding’ is going to be my word of the day.

Look at the physical placement of each image as well. Dads are top centre while mums are bottom row.

Yeah - I've read that slate article before. It's abhorrent. The selfishness, interfering like that will have affected both the baby and the mother's chances of successfully breastfeeding significantly.

The Association of Breastfeeding Mothers have shared the same image now.

In the scrabble to be woke (and therefore assert your cultural capital as either a young woman or, better, a man) the two groups that get shat on are the two that have always been shat on. Women and children. Intersectional feminism should be about seeing that and acknowledging that if you are also poor, if you are also disabled, if you are also from a BAME background, you are likely to be far less able to mitigate for the being shat on and are probably also being shat on in a myriad of other ways.

The Association of Breastfeeding Mothers is a group for nutters if you ask me, so I’m not surprised. I had to leave that fb group as some people were telling women who had come there for support that they’d damaged the health of their great great grandchildren by feeding a bottle of formula.

Stillathing, yes!