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Win a Boppy breastfeeding pillow – Closes 8th Sept at 2.45pm!

September 8th, 2010 by admin

The lovely people from Family Friendly Working have a draw for a Boppy breastfeeding pillow that ends today at 2.45.

All you have to do is comment on the page here:

http://www.familyfriendlyworking.co.uk/2010/08/27/win-a-boppy-breastfeeding-pillow/

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International Nestlé-Free Week 26th Oct!

By admin, on October 28th, 2009

International Nestlé-Free Week begins on 26 October. See: http://www.babymilkaction.org/resources/boycott/nestlefree.html

From Baby Milk Action site:

Nestlé-Free Week 26 October – 1 November
This year Nestlé-Free Week will take place from 26 October – 1 November.

This special week is an opportunity to give the ongoing boycott a boost.

The week encompasses Halloween, which Nestlé is increasingly trying to exploit in the UK.

You can find resources for promoting the boycott of Nestlé over its baby milk pushing in our Nestlé-Free Zone. See:

http://www.babymilkaction.org/resources/boycott/nestlefree.html

You can sign up on facebook to show you will promote the week at:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=139785596483

The ongoing boycott focuses on Nestlé’s flagship product, Nescafé coffee. We list all products from which Nestlé profits, so if you don’t normally avoid the whole lot, why not do so during this week? You may surprise yourself with how many alternative products are out there.

If you find that your friends and colleagues say they would boycott, but…. then challenge them to do so at least for this week.

We would welcome other poster designs specifically for the week, so feel free to send them to me at mikebrady@babymilkaction.org

You can also find items for promoting the boycott in our online Virtual Shop at:

http://www.babymilkaction.org/shop/boycott.html

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Breastfeeding and Feminism

By admin, on August 16th, 2009

This is a snip from a longer article here by Katie:

http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/homework/archive/2009/08/05/breastfeeding_2C00_-feminism_2C00_-activism.aspx

“Lately, I’ve noticed what can only be described as something of a “breastfeeding backlash” in the media, and among some mothers. The message of this backlash can best be summed up as something like this, “the health benefits of breastfeeding have been wildly exaggerated by a bunch of weird and nasty breastfeeding zealots who get their kicks from harassing bottle-feeding mothers in an attempt to make them feel guilty.”

There are variations and nuances on this theme, depending on the medium and message-bearer, but that pretty much covers all the bases. The most prominent recent example of the breastfeeding backlash was Hanna Rosin’s much-discussed piece in The Atlantic, provocatively titled, “The Case Against Breastfeeding.” Jennifer Block already wrote a definitive and specific rebuttal to Rosin’s piece, so that’s not my intent with this particular blog post. Instead, I want to explore the current reaction to perceived breastfeeding “zealotry,” and offer some context that I think might be helpful when considering how and why we are seeing this bubble of contrarian commentary at the moment.

The current breastfeeding backlash is a reaction to a certain intensity surrounding the issue of breastfeeding that did indeed gain currency over the past decade or so. But what today’s mothers – the ones who are fueling the breastfeeding backlash with their criticisms and complaints – don’t appreciate or maybe even realize is that the activism and advocacy they are slamming was actually an important, grassroots women’s health movement that managed to fundamentally change the way our culture views and treats breastfeeding within only about ten years (!!!). And any time you have a movement that erupts out of a sense of frustration and oppression, and manages to turn that frustration into the kind of power it takes to create meaningful change on a big issue, that movement is going to have to be both pushy and loud.

The group of people on the leading edge of most social change movements are often later criticized as “too radical” by the very people benefiting every single day from that radicalism. Example: 20 and 30-something female executives who today speak with disdain about those “radical, bra-burning feminists,” without appreciation for the fact that they are trashing the very women who effectively blasted open the doors of corporate America’s steno pool so their daughters and granddaughters could instead take up residence in the c-suite. So if these younger women are defining “radical” as “assertive, unrelenting, outspoken, political and visionary,” well then, yeah, I guess the objects of their criticism qualify for the label. But really, they should be thanking the feminists who preceded them into the workplace instead of criticizing them.

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An Alternative to THAT advert

By Ruth, on July 24th, 2008

You know the advert I mean. Thankfully I’ve not seen it for a while, but you may remember it. The one that basically implies that you can only have the perfect partner / father if you feed your baby a certain brand of artificial baby milk.

One of the many things that angers me about the advert is how clever it is; a byproduct of how much money and time has been spent in designing it and making it.

And how much time and thought, by comparison, goes into breastfeeding adverts in the UK, particularly in England? Not much!

It was getting me down, so I wrote this:

http://theperfectlatch.wordpress.com/2007/10/23/an-alternative-to-that-advert/

it starts like this:

<Gorgeous bloke massaging partner’s shoulders as she breastfeeds the newborn baby>

“I promise to support you in your decision to breastfeed, and never to suggest that any problems would be easily solved with a bottle.”

<Picture of said bloke cooking hot casserole as partner nurses the baby>

“I promise to “mother” you, as you mother our baby, and never to hassle you about household chores.”

Just imagine what we could do, if we had the same budget and the same access to top advertising companies that the artificial baby milk companies do!

And if you do see the original advertisement on TV again – don’t forget to complain. Maybe one day the ASA will have to listen!

Ruth

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