BabyTalk Magazine Cover - Image of Breastfeeding Mother Sparks Outrage

[fearlessbirth]

Did you guys see this? Have we already discussed it?


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14065706/

[jesscardona]

I don't think we did b/c when I got that mag. the board was down!
and it has a very good articles of BF. inside...
And it makes me sick how on that article people say that "huge breast on the cover" but on if it's a celebrity showing off their breast then oh WOW! look at that!! but when its a mother feeding her baby it's wrong! and I'm just sick of this crap!
just don't get me going on these issues... b/c it's wrong and disturbing...

[MindOverLaborDoulas]

Read this if you are constipated! It'll give you the sh**s!

You just have to read this! And of course at the end they had to leave a negative feel to it.. that burns my a**!!!

[jesscardona]

oh come on Ash... it tells me it can't find the server!!!

[MindOverLaborDoulas]

Lactivists: Where is it OK to breastfeed?
Babytalk magazine generates controversy with nursing cover

Thursday, July 27, 2006; Posted: 10:23 p.m. EDT (02:23 GMT)


This cover of Babytalk incited more than 700 letters to the editor, a record for the magazine.
NEW YORK (AP) -- "I was SHOCKED to see a giant breast on the cover of your magazine," one person wrote. "I immediately turned the magazine face down," wrote another. "Gross," said a third.

These readers weren't complaining about a sexually explicit cover, but rather one of a baby nursing, on a wholesome parenting magazine -- yet another sign that Americans are squeamish over the sight of a nursing breast, even as breast-feeding itself gains more support from the government and medical community.

Babytalk is a free magazine whose readership is overwhelmingly mothers of babies. Yet in a poll of more than 4,000 readers, a quarter of responses to the cover were negative, calling the photo -- a baby and part of a woman's breast, in profile -- inappropriate.

One mother who didn't like the cover explains she was concerned about her 13-year-old son seeing it.

"I shredded it," said Gayle Ash, of Belton, Texas, in a telephone interview. "A breast is a breast -- it's a sexual thing. He didn't need to see that."

It's the same reason that Ash, 41, who nursed all three of her children, is cautious about breast-feeding in public -- a subject of enormous debate among women, which has even spawned a new term: "lactivists," meaning those who advocate for a woman's right to nurse wherever she needs to.

"I'm totally supportive of it -- I just don't like the flashing," she said. "I don't want my son or husband to accidentally see a breast they didn't want to see."

Another mother, Kelly Wheatley, wrote Babytalk to applaud the cover, precisely because, she said, it helps educate people that breasts are more than sex objects. And yet Wheatley, 40, who's still nursing her 3-year-old daughter, rarely breast-feeds in public, partly because it's more comfortable in the car, and partly because her husband is uncomfortable with other men seeing her breast.

"Men are very visual," said Wheatley, of Amarillo, Texas. "When they see a woman's breast, they see a breast -- regardless of what it's being used for."

Babytalk editor Susan Kane says the mixed response to the cover clearly echoes the larger debate over breast-feeding in public. "There's a huge Puritanical streak in Americans," she said, "and there's a squeamishness about seeing a body part -- even part of a body part."

"It's not like women are whipping them out with tassels on them," she added. "Mostly, they are trying to be discreet."

Kane said that since the August issue came out last week, the magazine has received more than 700 letters -- more than for any article in years.

"Gross, I am sick of seeing a baby attached to a boob," wrote Lauren, a mother of a 4-month-old.

The evidence of public discomfort isn't just anecdotal. In a survey published in 2004 by the American Dietetic Association, less than half -- 43 percent -- of 3,719 respondents said women should have the right to breast-feed in public places.

The debate rages at a time when the celebrity-mom phenomenon has made breast-feeding perhaps more public than ever. Gwyneth Paltrow, Brooke Shields, Kate Hudson and Kate Beckinsale are only a few of the stars who've talked openly about their nursing experiences.

The celeb factor has even brought a measure of chic to that unsexiest of garments: the nursing bra. Gwen Stefani can be seen on babyrazzi.com -- a site with a self-explanatory name -- sporting a leopard-print version from lingerie line Agent Provocateur.

And fellow moms recognized a white one under Angelina Jolie's tank top on the cover of People. (Katie Holmes, meanwhile, suffered a maternity wardrobe malfunction when cameras caught her, nursing bra open and peeking out of her shirt, while on the town with fiance Tom Cruise.)

More seriously, the social and medical debate has intensified. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently concluded a two-year breast-feeding awareness campaign including a TV ad -- criticized as over-the-top even by some breast-feeding advocates -- in which not breast-feeding was equated with the recklessness of a pregnant woman riding a mechanical bull.

There have been other measures to promote breast-feeding: In December, for example, Massachusetts banned hospitals from giving new mothers gift bags with free infant formula, a practice opponents said swayed some women away from nursing.

Most states now have laws guaranteeing the right to breast-feed where one chooses, and when a store or restaurant employee denies a woman that right, it has often resulted in public protests known as "nurse-ins": at a Starbucks in Miami, Florida, at Victoria's Secret stores in Racine, Wisconsin, and Boston, Massachusetts, and, last year, outside ABC headquarters in New York, when Barbara Walters made comments on "The View" seen by some women to denigrate breast-feeding in public.

"It's a new age," says Melinda Johnson, a registered dietitian and spokesperson for ADA. "With the government really getting behind breast-feeding, it's been a jumping-off point for mothers to be politically active. Mommies are organizing. It's a new trend to be a mommy activist."

Ultimately, it seems to be a highly personal matter. Caly Wood said she's "all for breast-feeding in public." She recalls with a shudder the time she sat nursing in a restaurant booth, and another woman walked by, glanced over and said, "Ugh, gross."

"My kid needed to eat," said the 29-year-old from South Abingdon, Massachusetts. And she wasn't going to go hide in a not-so-clean restroom: "I don't send people to the bathroom when they want to eat," she said.

But Rebekah Kreutz thinks differently. One of six women who author SisterhoodSix, a blog on mothering issues, Kreutz didn't nurse her two daughters in public and doesn't really feel comfortable seeing others do it.

"I respect it and think women have the right," says Kreutz, 34, of Bozeman, Montana. "But personally, it makes me really uncomfortable."

"I just think it's one of those moments that should stay between a mother and her child."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[Little Blessings]

I must of embarrassed a lot of people when I breastfed my children....I did not care if someone was offended..it is the source of food for the baby..what is next?... changing the name of a bottle nipple? my gosh that could be considered sexual as well...I commend the magazine the breast is not just a sexual thing!!..I breastfed in the Hooter's Restaurant....(long story) but I figured I would show them the real purpose of what a breast is for....I say yeah for the magazine!!!!

[jesscardona]

yeah they don't want their kids looking at breast but they buy other mag. that has almost naked women on it, they let them watch all the TV with all these shows with these plastic women on it... just let me stop...before I keep on going!

[susan1]

Well ...I think we need to write as many or more letters about how great it is to see a magazine with such great taste.

[jesscardona]

I'm with you! b/c I loved it..

[fearlessbirth]

I got the link from 2 different yahoo groups I belong to and it's been NONSTOP replies. Lol I didn't think it was posted on here. And I just saw the picture in question today. How is that not the sweetest thing ever? I say people have deeply rooted personal issues if the sight of a breast with a hungry or sleepy baby attached to it causes you to feel disgusted or scared for your son or husband.

[AmandaB]

I am wondering if this backlash is due to the ads that are on your TV right now? The ones with the pregnant women doing dangerous things and equating that with not breastfeeding. Just an observation. Because this is all over the place right now, 20/20, I read about the nurse-in at VS and now this. We had a nurse-in here in Toronto because of the closing of one more of Jack Newmans clinics and it barely (sorry) made a ripple. I just don't know when this is going to stop being a big deal, women way back when BF their children. Then formula companies told women different. Now there is a resurggence, and all of a sudden people are shocked that that is what mammary glands are actually made for. *Shrug*

[motherstouchdoula]

Oh, I know this has been all over the net. What really burns my buns is that most of the poopoo heads are MOTHERS!! Here is a blog about the article it is soooo good, I love this woman and want to be her friend..LOL

http://dontgetmestarted-lindasharp.t...boob_abou.html

[fearlessbirth]

Oh I just looked at that blog and it is HILARIOUS...and true! Thanks for sharing

[Jilian]

I went to babies R us the other day with my sister (she's preg) and they were giving out the magazine there!! I was so happy to see it, I took 4 so I can give copies to my clients. Yeah for Baby Talk!!!

[jesscardona]

I actually get mine in the mail.. and somehow it seems that I lost it or threw it away or something...I got to go and get one!! if they still have some.. b/c I want to keep one for myself, I really liked it!