Normalizing Breastfeeding

With my third baby, I've become much more passionate and rooted in my belief about the power of breastfeeding and the need to normalize it as much as possible. I really struggled to get established in breastfeeding all three of my children but it was so worth all the tears and effort of pumping (more on that in a future blog post). My point is that it can be difficult enough without the added negativity and judgment that many people put on women who breastfeed in public.

That's why I was outraged when I read this article on foxnews.com.

Controversial Doll Lets Little Girls Pretend to Breast-Feed
Wednesday, August
05, 2009 By Jessica Doyle


Bebe
Gloton means "gluttonous baby." She comes with a special halter top for young
girls to wear as they pretend to breast-feed.
A controversial new doll is
leaving some parents wishing for the good old Cabbage Patch days.
A Spanish
toymaker known as Berjuan has developed a breast-feeding doll that comes with a
special halter top its young "mothers" wear as they pretend to breast-feed their
"babies." The halter top has daisies that cover the little girls’ nipples and
come undone just as easily as the flaps of a nursing bra would.
The doll —
called Bebe Gloton, which translates as “gluttonous baby” — makes sucking noises
as it "feeds."
Click here to see Bebe Gloton on 'FOX & Friends.'
Like
many other dolls, Bebe Gloton can cry, signaling she wants more
milk.
Although many health care providers promote the benefits of
breast-feeding, parents around the world have criticized Berjuan, saying the
idea of breast-feeding is too grown-up for young children -- and may even
promote early pregnancy.

"That's not cool," Lori Reynolds, of El Paso,
Texas, told KFOXTV.com. "No, I would never get that for my child."
But
other moms said they support the product.
"I think that it’s great that
people want to have a doll that promotes breast-feeding,” said Rose Haluschak,
also of El Paso. “Most dolls that are purchased come with a bottle. That is the
norm in society, an artificial way to feed your baby.”
Dr. Manny Alvarez,
managing health editor of FOXNews.com, said although he supports the idea of
breast-feeding, he sees how his own daughter plays with dolls and wonders if
Bebe Gloton might speed up maternal urges in the little girls who play
it.
“Pregnancy has to entail maturity and understanding,” Alvarez said. “It’s
like introducing sex education in first grade instead of seventh or eighth
grade. Or, it could inadvertently lead little girls to become traumatized. You
never know the effects this could have until she’s older.”
Alvarez said
breast-feeding reduces childhood infections, strengthens maternal bonding and
increases the child’s immune system. But introducing breast-feeding to girls
young enough to play with dolls seems inappropriate, he said.
“What’s next?”
wrote Eric Ruhalter, a parenting columnist for New Jersey’s Star Ledger. “Bebe Sot — the doll who has a problem with a
different kind of bottle, and loses his family, job and feelings of self-worth?
Bebe Limp — the male doll who experiences erectile dysfunction? Bebe Cell Mate —
a weak, unimposing doll that experiences all the indignation and humiliation of
life in prison?
"Toy themes should be age appropriate. I think so
anyway.”

I have so many problems with the opposition to a toy such as this cited in this article (unforrtunate translation of the name aside...):

1. "Breastfeeding is too grown up for young children and may even promote early pregnancy." But playing mommy by feeding a doll with a pretend bottle is somehow less adult? Only if you view breastfeeding as a sexually charged activity. Along this line of faulty logic, playing with cars might promote underage driving? Ridiculous.

2. Alvarez's comments as a doctor are totally alarming to me....speeding up maternal urges? Pregnancy and breastfeeding could traumatize little girls? No sex ed until they are in Grade 7 or 8?! Children as young as preschool age need to know about body science, pregnancy, and birth; breastfeeding should be part and parcel of that education (for more on this read here, and here). The last thing seeing or playing at breastfeeding should be is traumatizing. If anything, it would go a long way to normalizing breastfeeding and desexualizing breasts.

3. Unrelated to the article specifically, but as more of a comment on society...why is it not okay to facilitate children's play at a non-sexual activity such as breastfeeding but it's okay to let our little girls dress up like "prostitots?"

4. Ruhalter's equating breastfeeding with alcoholism, erectile dysfunction, and life in prison is just plain insulting to all nursing moms. Playing at feeding a baby is completely developmentally appropriate for young children. That's why they make dolls, play-dishes, and bottles; this is just one more way to feed a baby.

A toy such as this is, of course, not even really necessary at all. Just ask Amy. Shortly after I came home with Gavin, she sat down next to me with her Baby Alive (whose pretend bottle has been long lost) , discreetly lifted her shirt up a little, and "breastfed" her doll alongside me (once I finally got Gavin latching and settled into breastfeeding). Trevor brought over a pillow for her to rest her elbow on, like he'd seen Dave do for me.

And no-one discouraged them one bit.