Re: Breastfeeding Challenge Oct 1
The challenge is to get more American women to breast feed and to do so for longer periods of their baby's life and not feel bad about it. Many other countries have mothers who breast feed their babies twice as long in comparison to moms in the US, some even breastfeed for years. Advocates for breast feeding argue that it results in healthier babies and is better for mothers.
However, women often find that breastfeeding is awkward or difficult, given that many of them need to go back to work. They also feel awkward breastfeeding their baby in public, especially with strangers around (remember the whole Barbara Walters complaint about a mother feeding her baby on a plane? Here's a link: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art32659.asp to refresh your memory.) Women were often encouraged to wean their babies to bottles/formula in the past to maintain a certain image in society, and babies often weren't fed any breast milk at all.
I think the point of this is to make women feel that it's ok to breastfeed, that it's worth all the "trouble," and that they don't need to feel uncomfortable about it. It's trying to change the image of breastfeeding into a positive one.
Originally posted by cezanne
However, women often find that breastfeeding is awkward or difficult, given that many of them need to go back to work. They also feel awkward breastfeeding their baby in public, especially with strangers around (remember the whole Barbara Walters complaint about a mother feeding her baby on a plane? Here's a link: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art32659.asp to refresh your memory.) Women were often encouraged to wean their babies to bottles/formula in the past to maintain a certain image in society, and babies often weren't fed any breast milk at all.
I think the point of this is to make women feel that it's ok to breastfeed, that it's worth all the "trouble," and that they don't need to feel uncomfortable about it. It's trying to change the image of breastfeeding into a positive one.
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