I came across this post on Informed Parenting which shared Emma Kwasnica’s thoughts on why seeing breastfeeding is important and why Facebook is wrong and I had to share it. I’ve pasted it below.

My thoughts on why Facebook shouldn’t delete breastfeeding photos? They provide a forum to promote and educate a practice that is critical to our species. According to UNICEF, the “reinforcement of a “breastfeeding culture” and its vigorous defense against incursions of a “formula-feeding culture” is imperative.” The danger of seeing breastfeeding as something to be embarrassed about is that it can cause women to never breastfeed or wean early. Early weaning costs our country billions. $13 billion a year, in fact. Saving money isn’t the only reason why supporting breastfeeding is important. It also saves lives. In the US, if 90 percent mothers fed their babies breast milk only for the first six months of life, the lives of nearly 900 babies would be saved each year. The benefits of breastfeeding are widely touted. Many studies show babies who breastfeed more than 6 months are smarter, better adjusted, have fewer allergies, stronger hearts, stronger lungs, less likely to have asthma, less likely to be obese. For all of those reasons and more, there are real dangers if breast milk is replaced by formula when it isn’t necessary.

Why am I bringing up formula? What do most mothers who wean early give their babies? What do most mothers who never breastfeed give their babies? What do people in public think a nursing mother should be giving their baby? A bottle. A bottle of formula. Yes, many people think it is more acceptable to give a baby a bottle of formula for public expeditions than it is to nurse with a breast. They have no idea the harm formula causes or that a bottle is just an imitation of a breast. I’m not trying to bash mothers who use formula, just people who think a breastfeeding mother should hide her breasts or only nurse at home because bottles should be used for the courtesy of others.

Formula is necessary for many but it is not an equal substitute to breast milk, in any way.

According to UNICEF:

Formula is not an acceptable substitute for breastmilk because formula, at its best, only replaces most of the nutritional components of breast milk: it is just a food, whereas breast milk is a complex living nutritional fluid containing anti-bodies, enzymes, long chain fatty acids and hormones, many of which simply cannot be included in formula.  Furthermore, in the first few months, it is hard for the baby’s gut to absorb anything other than breastmilk. Even one feeding of formula or other foods can cause injuries to the gut, taking weeks for the baby to recover.

Formula should only be used if absolutely necessary. Milk banks or milk sharing should be a more available option than formula, but sadly, that is not the case. But I digress.

Back why seeing nursing mothers in public and on Facebook is a big deal!

I’d just like to talk a bit about the bigger picture here for a moment, in that by Facebook taking this stance against breastfeeding images, and by creating such arbitrary obscenity guidelines as “no exposed areola or nipple may be shown” (I have seen many, many women whose areola covers up to a third or more of their entire breast – a baby’s mouth could never come close to “covering” it all!), it is stigmatizing breastfeeding women, and shaming women into thinking that their breasts are much, much less than the amazing life-giving source they are. Nipplephobia has reached epic proportions here in North America, and this is to the supreme detriment of babies everywhere.

Just think for one moment, how many more women would breastfeed, or for how much longer, if only we rid society of the harmful practice of over-sexualizing women’s breasts! And how much this, in turn, could benefit BABIES. For whose voice do the most vulnerable members of society have, if not ours? Interestingly, we find cultures around the world where women’s breasts are seen *only* in their functioning capacity, i.e., that of nourishing and comforting their young. I believe that we can get there, too (or at least try to find some balance), but we have to start somewhere, and I truly feel that there is never any harm to come from challenging the status quo (you’re not surprised, I know ;-) ).

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again : as a childbirth professional, but also as a woman, in general, it is absolutely crucial that one support ALL women to breastfeed their young. While you, personally, may have your own code of “decency” for how much skin YOU are comfortable showing while breastfeeding, it is important that you do not impose your own, completely arbitrary line drawn in the sand regarding “modesty” or “discreetness”, onto any other breastfeeding mother. Period. Just like a woman who wants to cover up should be supported (and generally IS in our society….), we need to support those women who struggle –or those women who do not want, or care– to cover their baby and their breast, and make life simpler for these women to, first and foremost, feed and comfort the baby!

Quite simply, this is about normalizing breastfeeding. The more we hide it away, classify it as obscene, shame mothers into covering up while feeding, and encourage women to retire to “private” rooms in order to breastfeed the baby, the less we see of it in public, and the less and less people are comfortable with the very idea of nursing in public. This is the sad reality, in this pathologically hyper-sexualized (yet sexually repressed…) North American culture of ours. The solution, however, seems quite simple to me; breastfeeding (and/or images of breastfeeding) need to be seen every day, and I am convinced that SEEING more breastfeeding, wherever possible, is what will change our breastfeeding culture. Re-normalize it. Everywhere in North America (in all provinces in Canada, and in every state in the USA but two) women have the right to breastfeed in public, wherever they have the legal right to be. So women should do it. And they should feel completely free to do it. Lots of it. As much as possible.

If you want to be a part of the solution, here is one, simple thing you can do, each and every time you see a mother breastfeeding her baby in public : yes, give her a great, big smile, but don’t stop there –go right *up* to her, and tell her what a wonderful thing she is doing for her child. I guarantee you, that if we all did even this simple gesture every time we saw a woman nursing in public, the tides would begin to turn.

I would also like to suggest in your daily life (outside the ‘net), that you get out there and nurse your children in public. And do so with a huge smile across your face. Pretty hard for onlookers to say, feel, or do something negative in the face of a beaming, breastfeeding mother –n’est-ce pas?

Breastfeeding is normal. Normal. NORMAL. Say it, do it, show it.

Will you start by doing these simple acts right today? Indeed, I challenge you.

Warm regards,
~Emma Kwasnica

BREAKING A TABOO. Emma Kwasnica & her family at the 2008 Montréal Breastfeeding Challenge. This photo and article were published in Le Journal de Montréal, a major daily francophone newspaper. This image was banned from Facebook.

If a North American city of 2.5 million can handle this in their daily paper, why can’t Facebook?

My Related Posts:

• Read it: Every argument against NIP debunked - Paa.la
• 2012 International Facebook Nurse-in update: Censorship continues. Nurse-in is still on - Paa.la
• What was Facebook’s response to the International Nurse-in? - Paa.la
• Why Breastfeeding Discrimination is Wrong - Paa.la
• Breastfeeding Posters: Benefits, What’s in Breastmilk vs Formula & The Breastfed Baby & Toddler – Paa.la
• Search my archive for breastfeeding photography.