There seems to be a bit of outrage over a magazine cover feature some breastfeeding 'in action', in America. Here's some sample quotes:
"I was SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine."
"I immediately turned the magazine face down."
I'm not sure how I feel about this, though. In the UK we're portrayed as very Benny Hill when it comes to breasts, and in the US people are portrayed as very confused. It's clearly not that clear cut, but the most alarming result of these hang-ups, on both sides of the Atlantic, are clear:
"Interestingly, and perhaps perversely, these days, the educated and relatively well-off breastfeed at a much higher rate than those who are not. College-educated mothers breastfed at a rate of 52%, compared to 28% for those with high school degrees. Only 30% of women below the poverty line breastfeed, compared to 46% above the poverty line – and this despite the fact that infant formula is costly.
Breastfeeding, of course, is FREE"
That's very true, in my experience, and we should all be trying to better those statistics.
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I think that it is naive of people to have such a response to a breast feeding baby (a harsh response, I know!) - there are many more provocative pictures on the front of main stream women's magazines and I really think that these should be the issue, not something as natural and important as this image.
Duncan's very right in highlighting the percentage of people (and who) breast feed. I know that here in the UK midwives have to encourage breast feeding, but it doesn't get that much of a "sales" pitch (which is exactly what infant formula gets... i lost track of the number of free samples and vouchers we got when I had our son).
If it wasn't for my determination to breast feed, the hospital would have had me bottle feeding from the word go because our son was reluctant to feed (he was a big, lazy boy - apparently it's not that unusual) and they could only tell what he was drinking if it came from a bottle. It took four or five trying days and he was breast feeding no problem ..... I didn't look at formula again until he was going to nursery and I couldn't be certain how long the frozen supplies would last.
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