Boobalicious!

OK, so I took a break from writing to have a child…

But, I was so enraged by the government’s latest project that I took a break from breastfeeding to vent!

Incase you haven’t seen the commercials, there is a new breastfeeding campaign targeted at first time preggers to “encourage” breastfeeding. The commercials show extremely pregnant woman doing extremely dangerous stunts like mechanical bull riding and log running with bold captions that imply you wouldn’t endanger your child like this before he’s born so why would you afterward by feeding him formula.

This campaign is a waste of money that can only isolate and further depress the women who choose (because they live in a free country) not to breastfeed. Besides the fact that our milk doesn’t always come in, that we don’t always have enough, and that we may not want to… breastfeeding takes dedication on both the parts of the mother and child and sometimes it just doesn’t work.

These dollars could have been better spent on a campaign of commercials to encourage the social acceptance of public breastfeeding. Woman are back to work in this country long before the “please breastfeed for 6 months” are up. There needs to be more awareness and help for the working mom, the shopping mom, and the “I’m allowed to leave my house” mom.

I personally hope to breastfeed my daughter until she’s 6 months… maybe even longer. I love the experience and the bonding time is amazing, but I don’t always have enough milk to pump and she doesn’t always take a bottle. Sometimes I feel like my choice to breastfeed means staying home for the next 4 months because I may get caught in public with a hungry baby.

Most pregnant mothers I know or knew make choices about breastfeeding somewhere in the 9 months of reading everything they can get their hands on. It’s 2006 we are informed women who go to our doctor appointments and ask questions… and if women are not doing this than we have an even bigger issue than breastfeeding!

And, one more thing… kudos to Harris Teeter who offers pregnant women and new moms special parking. It’s just a little something that makes this new hectic life easier!

That’s what’s going on behind these blue eyes…