Facebook Breast-Feeding Controversy
Denver – Good morning, everybody! I hope you had a great weekend. There is a protest gaining national attention on Facebook! People are outraged! People are protesting! Women are baring their souls! Bras are being burned! Nipples have gone nudist! And all this in defiance of an online, social networking web site!
I LOVE DEMOCRACY!
HaHa!
Wow! People are obscenely outraged about the Facebook Obscenity scandal!
I s’pose some people perceive a picture of a baby suckling from a mother’s teat as titillatingly obscene. Outraged mothers insist that the Facebook picture is genuinely natural and that the only people complaining about the pictures are Prickly Perverts.
Confused? Don’t be!
In Japan, a protein found in breast milk is being studied as a potential way to reduce fat in adults’ abdomens. Lactoferrin is the protein in breast milk that has shown an ability to reduce visceral fat – the deep fat in people’s guts – and may ultimately help reduce the risk of heart attacks.
And! Plus! One web site even offers a recommendation on when it is best to dine on milk of a woman’s breast:
If you want to try this new breast milk diet, the particulars are important. To get the best results, you need to find “new” breast milk, which is from someone that has birthed within the last 3 days.
“Mmm .. ‘kay,” you say?
I know! I feel the same way!
Anyway, the point of today’s article is its title.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Tah-Tah!
Paotie
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That’s interesting about the Japanese who researched the Milk-Diet project. I’ve always thought that the Japanese who are very skinny and lean have eaten lots of healthy rice. During the Winter Olympics in 1998, they provided people to eat the Octopus for the dinner. They considered that it’s very healthy! Ewwww!
Facebook, Myspace and Twitter are having some social networking problems! I’m glad that I am not into any of them! Save my butt from all the hacking problems. Especially the security crisis. I must play smart. :-/
[Portion of this comment has been deleted: Please keep comments related to article topic.]
I guess that explains the personals add I saw on Craig’s list for a young guy looking to hook up with a lactating woman.
I thought long and hard about this one. I’m all for breastfeeding. I’m all for women doing it anywhere. I’ve done it, but, I didn’t expose my whole breasts and nipples. First off, how these women chose to do it, is their own business. To each their own.
However, because we live in a world where creeps and pervs roams, one has to ask herself this question: Do I want my picture used for the sole gratification of some creep who gets off looking at my breastfed picture where my breasts are fully shown, including the nipples? We’re not talking about curiosity here, we’re talking about real creeps who do not see breastfeeding as a natural mother/baby bonding experience. As for Facebook, if the site is private where no one can see the pictures but the moms and people they know, then, I don’t see what the problem is.
I for one have to say this coming from a normal man. Not some sicko that is wanting to see this any way. I believe that every woman should be able to feed her child the way that she so desires. It is natural and beneficial to the child and as a society we should embrace it. That being said I still believe that people should do it with taste. Cover up, put a blanket over you the child doesnt care it seems. I believe if you choose to do this for your childs sake that is your business. But when your business becomes my business while Im trying to eat my Big Mac thats where it crosses the line.
Oh, Kevin, that sounds reasonable until you have actually… breastfed. Did you know that the human infant’s stomach is the size of its fist? Do you really understand how often babies need to nurse if they are to maintain appropriate weight gain? Picture yourself on a liquid diet… no solids. Yep, it’s pretty darn often that infants need to nurse. Oh wait, let me guess, you suggest bottles. Did you know that research shows that there is a major problem with supplementing with formula (changing the gut flora in detrimental ways which will last for weeks with each time a supplement is used) and there is a problem of supplementing with bottles of human milk, even, because each time that a baby nurses without a bottle the mother transfers immunity to what she and the baby have both been exposed to in the previous few minutes (viruses, bacteria, etc)?! Combine that with the thousands of components not available in artificial baby milk, and well, you’ve got a problem with the whole coverup or bottlefeed idea. Having BF 4 boys, I can attest to the fact that it’s not only difficult (and too warm) to coverup, but it makes it far more obvious to everyone that you are doing something under that blanket. Some babies will actually resist the feeling of being “trapped” under blankets and can become fussy and overheated.
This all explains why the US has such low rates of BF after only a few weeks or months of life. Did you know that the World Health Org. recommends BF beyond a child’s 2nd birthday? It’s not possible here with the “social” issues such as the idea that it is somehow related to sex, that revealing a breast of nipple in the course of feeding a tiny baby is somehow perverted, or that there are perverts on every corner trying to get a glimpse of nipple. Who really cares? I got to the point where I knew that my child was being well-fed and cared for in the best way possible, and let people with issues deal with it themselves.
Interestingly, one of my children was implanted with a cochlear implant earlier based partially on the surgeon’s belief that this child was well suited for implantation because he was breastfed… breastfed babies have far fewer ear infections and have statistically HALF the number of sick doctor visits in their first year of life alone. My two year knows that no matter what bad stuff happens… when we snuggle up and he is ready to sleep, he can nurse and reconnect with mom. There is nothing better for regrouping and relaxing. I have heard of toddlers who won’t go to bed… who run wild after 8 PM. Now mine. I have secret sleep potion.
My superpower? I make milk. What’s yours?
Hey Paotie! I just got home, and I’m now home for a loooong time! Anyways, I was seriously cracking up when I read the news regarding this controversy. As someone who has been to Europe quite a few times, I’ve seen TONS of women exposing their breast in public, most notably at the beach! They were treated no different from the men who had their shirts off. It sounds like our culture is a little screwed up.
)
I file this under the ‘people are idiots’ rule. I heard about the controversy on the radio and listened to people talk about how ‘gross’ it is. I return to ‘people are idiots’
[...] example, more recently – breast feeding pictures on Facebook (FB). FB forbade pictures of that nature to be posted on members site. [...]
If our culture is a “little screwed up” would you do it au naturel then like at a designated beach?
LOL Paotie, another good article which had me in stiches! I don’t know who Kevin is, but his comment really cracked me up.
Seriously, ah…it is 2009, I questioned FB raising this as an issue when there are far more suggestive pixs on facebook than someone breastfeeding. I frankly feel breastfeeding in public has become part of a way of life. I dont understand the fuss, I mean, it is your EYES that’s staring watching isnt it? So it seems that who really has “control” in this are the people who decide to watch. The power you have, is to ahhh…”look away”, eh?
(esp when eating a Big Mac).
Good Morning…
Sorry if you think this could be off the point…..I’d like to bring up how dangerous Facebook is.
Here it is…..
http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/rss.cfm?id=100920
Through the what? Grapevine! :-/
Mcconnell– did you just equate sex with eating? This is an example of just what I was talking about. Perhaps you are unaware that breasts are not a sexual item in many cultures. They are not genitalia; they do not reproduce. And feeding with them has nothing to do with sex except in a culture where people have chosen to link the two. Read anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler’s on this subject. In other cultures, feet are erotic. And yet, walking barefoot in the United States isn’t outlawed, yet.
I would breastfeed anywhere my child was hungry. And I happen to be a conservative mother of 4 who would not consider having sex anywhere but in complete privacy. Breastfeeding and sexuality are not linked except as constructs of people’s imaginations.
No. I was asking a question about going to a nude beach….”au naturel” or did you not see what I wrote?
Facebook even banned some George Orwell t-shirts: http://prozacforangels.ning.com/profiles/blogs/1984-25-years-after-the
I assumed that your words “do it” meant doing it, McConnell. If you meant topless walking on beaches, then I am sorry!
I have seen so many confuse the two (sexual and feeding purposes of breasts) that I jumped to conclusions. I wouldn’t walk topless simply because I am not comfortable with it (based mostly on my culture– not because I think it’s wrong, and also for personal reasons, such as my age and so on)! LOL! But feeding and walking around topless aren’t the same… one is much more essential than the others. Even in cultures where cold weather and cultural norms prohibit topless behavior, babies need to be breastfed for normal health and well-being. Humans have inferior health without it, and that’s a fact. And moms need to breastfeed– it is known to promote health (mental and physical) and inhibit pre-menopausal breast cancer. So any exposure that may happen when one is feeding a baby is not only incidental but something which our society should not be concerned about. They just shouldn’t. Some women are larger and have more difficulty feeding a baby in what some would consider a “discreet” manner, and the babies of those mothers need to be fed just as often as the other babies.
Babies stomachs are the size of their little fists, and they are on a liquid diet which is absorbed and utilized extremely quickly. They must nurse often. Babies of animals which have a high fat percentage in their milk are made so that the mother can leave and forage all day. Human milk, on the other hand, has a relatively low fat percentage and is designed to create brain material. It is mostly carbs. Babies whose mothers limit their feedings to every 4 hours will, inevitably, have reduced milk volume and hungry babies who will fail to thrive.