Thursday 28 May 2015

A Dad's take on bressure and brelfies

BREAST feeding is back in the news today and apparently now any mum who posts a pic of her breastfeeding has put pressure on those who couldn't for whatever reason.

As a result, the hashtag #bressure has provoked a lot of support from bottle feeding mums who feel pressured into breastfeeding.

Various stories, 'how I was looked down on when I bottlefed' and the like have been posted and frankly it's ridiculous.

As I recall, 'brelfies' rose to prominence because various social media sites were censoring breastfeeding pictures because of all the 'nudity' (god help too much flesh is shown eh)

I don't recall one brelfie with the message 'This is the right and only way and a plague on all those who don't flop their boobs out to nurture their babies'

Why? because it didn't happen. Brelfies were proud mums, sharing those intimate moments with the world.

The same intimate moments can be had with bottle feeding, had this campaign been 'bottlefie' then brilliant, a great way to get the message across that breast or bottle, both are brilliant.

But instead it's back to running down breastfeeding. I've seen the hurt in Pam's eyes when she couldn't get Jacob to feed from her breast. He was lazy, we had all the help possible, lovely supportive midwives, different positions but sometimes it just doesn't work.

But now, nine months on, is she ashamed she couldn't, depressed and pressured if she sees a mum breastfeeding? No, my wife like hundreds of millions of women in the world is proud, proud she carried and birthed a baby. Because whatever the argument, THAT is the greatest accomplishment.

If anyone in your social circle judges you for not being able to breastfeed then maybe you need to rethink your social circle?

I know Pam wouldn't look down on any mum who breastfeeds or bottlefeeds and speaking as a dad, I can't see how any woman could.

Women are given the greatest gift, they can conceive, grow and deliver human life. Frankly, it doesn't matter how they then feed their babies just as long as they do.

We shouldn't judge anyone on either side of this debate, we should instead remember our children are being fed, some aren't.

Surely that's a bigger issue to worry about?

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