Does a lover really have first claim on breasts?. Women's bodies have become so associated with sex that now a mothers' magazine has called breast-feeding 'creepy'. Rowan Pelling is appalled.
No topic is liable to prompt a fist fight among mothers so rapidly as breast-feeding. Foot soldiers for the breast versus bottle debate line up like Roundheads against Cavaliers. Women who bottle-feed are often accused of lacking maternal instinct, while those who dare lactate beyond the three-year mark are viewed as hessian-clad feminists, only one short step away from running a lesbian commune in a yurt.
The last time I wrote on the topic, saying in the mildest terms that while I subscribed to the view that breast was best it was counter-productive to bully women on the topic, I received a torrent of abusive mail. Several people suggested that I should not have reproduced if I "couldn't be bothered" to feed the baby myself, while one New Man denounced my laziness, saying piously that he had "made sure my wife persevered for our child's good". I had a vision of his poor spouse weeping with cracked nipples, while he chained her to the nursing chair.
But this is nothing to the vitriolic missives received by friends who have written thoughtful articles on why they decided to breast-feed their offspring beyond three years of age. From the tone and volume of the correspondence, you might have believed they were slipping their children heroin. One was told she was a work-shy man-hater who had clearly driven away her husband – which all came as something of a surprise to that happily married, hard-working mum.
So a provocative article just published in Mother & Baby magazine has acted like kerosene on a conflagration. The author, Kathryn Blundell (the magazine's deputy editor), wrote that she bottle-fed her babies because: "I wanted my body back ... and some wine," and she wanted her breasts: "on my chest, rather than dangling round my stomach".
However, the most controversial part of Bundell's polemic came when she said of her breasts: "They're part of my sexuality too – not just breasts, but fun bags. And when you have that attitude (and I admit I made no attempt to change it), seeing your teeny, tiny innocent baby latching on where only a lover has been before feels, well, a little creepy."
Seldom, outside the crudest lads' mags, has it been so trumpeted that the breast's real function is as perky showroom ware.
The article is perturbing evidence of how far Barbie culture has penetrated the mainstream: the surreal Hollywood dream where a gravity-defying bosom is more normal – and more laudable – than offering breast milk to a hungry little baby. Worryingly, Blundell's views are far from isolated: if you speak to any midwife they will tell you that thousands of young, working-class mums are so influenced by Katie Price, WAGs and the contemporary cult of pneumatic bosoms that they wouldn't dream of breast-feeding. This, despite its numerous health benefits and the fact that, if properly supported, breast-feeding is the quickest and easiest way to bond with your baby.
It's easy to forget that none of this debate is new. Long before formula milk was a twinkle in Nestlé's eye, blue-blooded women were farming their babies out to wet-nurses. Greek and Roman authors such as Aristotle and Pliny condemned the practice, believing that women who nurtured their children themselves would be likely to foster greater family ties and therefore patriotism.
In Europe, from the late 13th century onwards, painted images of a nursing Virgin Mary helped encourage the wider population to breast-feed their children – and some historians say it is no coincidence that these images proliferated at a time of widespread plague and disease, when farming your baby out to others would have been particularly risky.
Aristocrats, however, continued to favour wet-nurses, believing it was unsavoury to have sex with a woman when she was breast-feeding – an uncanny precursor of Blundell's notion that the whole practice is "creepy". The behaviour of the nobility, as continues to be the case with those in the public eye, influenced the fashion-conscious; by the 18th century, wet-nursing had become so widespread in Paris that almost all of the babies of the urban poor, let alone the wealthy, were dispatched to be nursed by country surrogates. This practice resulted in widespread neglect and galloping infant mortality rates.
The trend was halted by Jean-Jacques Rousseau's highly influential polemic on the issue (never mind the fact that Rousseau's five children were all packed off to a foundling hospital and never seen again). But historical cycles are hard to break: modern-day France has one of the lower breast-feeding rates in the Western world and, like Blundell, many French women happily put convenience and the preservation of a shapely bosom before lactation. Nor would they expect to be criticised for this decision – or give a damn, come to that.
Over the past 50 years, of course, the debate has centred on the evils, or otherwise, of formula milk. Without doubt the unscrupulous promotion of powdered baby milk in Third World countries, where it's often mixed with insanitary water, has led to the deaths of countless babies. Even when it's properly mixed, experts acknowledge that formula cannot compete with the unique benefits of a mother's breast milk with its protective antibodies. Nor will it protect against breast cancer, as lactation does.
But knowing this does not necessarily make it any easier to perform the so-called "natural" function. While some women take to it like a duck to water, others find breast-feeding about as easy as Sanskrit. My own mother, the most maternal woman who ever walked the planet, said she "simply didn't get on with it" and bottle-fed all five of us to no obvious detriment.
I was unable to breast-feed my first son for several reasons. First, he was taken away from me at birth and fed formula down a tube in his nose for 24 hours, although no one consulted me on the procedure. Then the hospital failed to diagnose a severe tongue-tie (where the bit of tissue that roots the tongue to the floor of the mouth is over-extended, literally "tying" the tongue, meaning the baby cannot latch on to the nipple). Second time round, I hired an independent midwife for a home birth and she had my son on the breast within 40 minutes, then gave me intense breast-feeding support for the next month, which I needed.
It made me realise how chronically ill-equipped most hospitals are to offer this kind of back-up, and how inevitable it is that many women, unsupported, will cease the effort. I found breast-feeding painful, awkward and difficult at first – yet ultimately it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. The bond it fosters between mother and child is beyond all describing, and I see it every day in my second son's sustained eye-contact and overtly affectionate nature.
I am no martyr for the cause, but I do think childcare experts have a duty to avoid cheap sensationalism and promote best practice. As Anna Burbridge, of the breast-feeding organisation La Leche League, says of Blundell's article, "What women need is more information and support to help them through early difficulties, not negative and inaccurate information like this."
I must say that I can't help worrying the piece will be read by a number of nervous and impressionable new mothers, who will come away with the idea that breast-feeding is a repellent, unsexy thing to do that disfigures your bosom and prohibits fun. Try telling that to my great friend Christobel.
She has breast-fed five children (none of them for less than two years) without jeopardising her cleavage or considerable sex appeal. Furthermore, she has always opined that "the odd glass of Prosecco never hurt any of my babies".
If the readers of Mother & Baby could see a feisty woman like this, complete with diamond nose stud and Agent Provocateur bikini, they would see the world is not divided into breast-feeding drudges and formula-wielding hotties. Furthermore, they could begin to believe that the great miracle of the breast is that it is simultaneously nurturing and erotic. Eastern cultures readily accept this miracle, but in the West, where the porn and fashion industries have conspired to strip the bosom of its maternal function, we remain polarised.
Modern women have been told so frequently that their breasts are man-magnets that many find it impossible to believe they have any other biological function. The truth is that there's almost nothing creepier than a culture in which breasts are reduced to "fun-bags". ( telegraph.co.uk )
No topic is liable to prompt a fist fight among mothers so rapidly as breast-feeding. Foot soldiers for the breast versus bottle debate line up like Roundheads against Cavaliers. Women who bottle-feed are often accused of lacking maternal instinct, while those who dare lactate beyond the three-year mark are viewed as hessian-clad feminists, only one short step away from running a lesbian commune in a yurt.
The last time I wrote on the topic, saying in the mildest terms that while I subscribed to the view that breast was best it was counter-productive to bully women on the topic, I received a torrent of abusive mail. Several people suggested that I should not have reproduced if I "couldn't be bothered" to feed the baby myself, while one New Man denounced my laziness, saying piously that he had "made sure my wife persevered for our child's good". I had a vision of his poor spouse weeping with cracked nipples, while he chained her to the nursing chair.
But this is nothing to the vitriolic missives received by friends who have written thoughtful articles on why they decided to breast-feed their offspring beyond three years of age. From the tone and volume of the correspondence, you might have believed they were slipping their children heroin. One was told she was a work-shy man-hater who had clearly driven away her husband – which all came as something of a surprise to that happily married, hard-working mum.
So a provocative article just published in Mother & Baby magazine has acted like kerosene on a conflagration. The author, Kathryn Blundell (the magazine's deputy editor), wrote that she bottle-fed her babies because: "I wanted my body back ... and some wine," and she wanted her breasts: "on my chest, rather than dangling round my stomach".
However, the most controversial part of Bundell's polemic came when she said of her breasts: "They're part of my sexuality too – not just breasts, but fun bags. And when you have that attitude (and I admit I made no attempt to change it), seeing your teeny, tiny innocent baby latching on where only a lover has been before feels, well, a little creepy."
Seldom, outside the crudest lads' mags, has it been so trumpeted that the breast's real function is as perky showroom ware.
The article is perturbing evidence of how far Barbie culture has penetrated the mainstream: the surreal Hollywood dream where a gravity-defying bosom is more normal – and more laudable – than offering breast milk to a hungry little baby. Worryingly, Blundell's views are far from isolated: if you speak to any midwife they will tell you that thousands of young, working-class mums are so influenced by Katie Price, WAGs and the contemporary cult of pneumatic bosoms that they wouldn't dream of breast-feeding. This, despite its numerous health benefits and the fact that, if properly supported, breast-feeding is the quickest and easiest way to bond with your baby.
It's easy to forget that none of this debate is new. Long before formula milk was a twinkle in Nestlé's eye, blue-blooded women were farming their babies out to wet-nurses. Greek and Roman authors such as Aristotle and Pliny condemned the practice, believing that women who nurtured their children themselves would be likely to foster greater family ties and therefore patriotism.
In Europe, from the late 13th century onwards, painted images of a nursing Virgin Mary helped encourage the wider population to breast-feed their children – and some historians say it is no coincidence that these images proliferated at a time of widespread plague and disease, when farming your baby out to others would have been particularly risky.
Aristocrats, however, continued to favour wet-nurses, believing it was unsavoury to have sex with a woman when she was breast-feeding – an uncanny precursor of Blundell's notion that the whole practice is "creepy". The behaviour of the nobility, as continues to be the case with those in the public eye, influenced the fashion-conscious; by the 18th century, wet-nursing had become so widespread in Paris that almost all of the babies of the urban poor, let alone the wealthy, were dispatched to be nursed by country surrogates. This practice resulted in widespread neglect and galloping infant mortality rates.
The trend was halted by Jean-Jacques Rousseau's highly influential polemic on the issue (never mind the fact that Rousseau's five children were all packed off to a foundling hospital and never seen again). But historical cycles are hard to break: modern-day France has one of the lower breast-feeding rates in the Western world and, like Blundell, many French women happily put convenience and the preservation of a shapely bosom before lactation. Nor would they expect to be criticised for this decision – or give a damn, come to that.
Over the past 50 years, of course, the debate has centred on the evils, or otherwise, of formula milk. Without doubt the unscrupulous promotion of powdered baby milk in Third World countries, where it's often mixed with insanitary water, has led to the deaths of countless babies. Even when it's properly mixed, experts acknowledge that formula cannot compete with the unique benefits of a mother's breast milk with its protective antibodies. Nor will it protect against breast cancer, as lactation does.
But knowing this does not necessarily make it any easier to perform the so-called "natural" function. While some women take to it like a duck to water, others find breast-feeding about as easy as Sanskrit. My own mother, the most maternal woman who ever walked the planet, said she "simply didn't get on with it" and bottle-fed all five of us to no obvious detriment.
I was unable to breast-feed my first son for several reasons. First, he was taken away from me at birth and fed formula down a tube in his nose for 24 hours, although no one consulted me on the procedure. Then the hospital failed to diagnose a severe tongue-tie (where the bit of tissue that roots the tongue to the floor of the mouth is over-extended, literally "tying" the tongue, meaning the baby cannot latch on to the nipple). Second time round, I hired an independent midwife for a home birth and she had my son on the breast within 40 minutes, then gave me intense breast-feeding support for the next month, which I needed.
It made me realise how chronically ill-equipped most hospitals are to offer this kind of back-up, and how inevitable it is that many women, unsupported, will cease the effort. I found breast-feeding painful, awkward and difficult at first – yet ultimately it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. The bond it fosters between mother and child is beyond all describing, and I see it every day in my second son's sustained eye-contact and overtly affectionate nature.
I am no martyr for the cause, but I do think childcare experts have a duty to avoid cheap sensationalism and promote best practice. As Anna Burbridge, of the breast-feeding organisation La Leche League, says of Blundell's article, "What women need is more information and support to help them through early difficulties, not negative and inaccurate information like this."
I must say that I can't help worrying the piece will be read by a number of nervous and impressionable new mothers, who will come away with the idea that breast-feeding is a repellent, unsexy thing to do that disfigures your bosom and prohibits fun. Try telling that to my great friend Christobel.
She has breast-fed five children (none of them for less than two years) without jeopardising her cleavage or considerable sex appeal. Furthermore, she has always opined that "the odd glass of Prosecco never hurt any of my babies".
If the readers of Mother & Baby could see a feisty woman like this, complete with diamond nose stud and Agent Provocateur bikini, they would see the world is not divided into breast-feeding drudges and formula-wielding hotties. Furthermore, they could begin to believe that the great miracle of the breast is that it is simultaneously nurturing and erotic. Eastern cultures readily accept this miracle, but in the West, where the porn and fashion industries have conspired to strip the bosom of its maternal function, we remain polarised.
Modern women have been told so frequently that their breasts are man-magnets that many find it impossible to believe they have any other biological function. The truth is that there's almost nothing creepier than a culture in which breasts are reduced to "fun-bags". ( telegraph.co.uk )
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