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I've posted a blog about rape and the Game of Thrones, on this link:


http://themewlingquim.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/the-lannister-rape.html

Lots of people appear to be having problems on how to inter-act with bottle feeding mothers.  And formula feeding ones.  Bearing in mind one does not equate to the other.

Not to mention, that you can be breastfeeding, and still using formula.

So shall we just stick to saying UP FRONT, formula feeders.  Just so you are clear?  Great.  They are feeding formula.  With, or without, a bottle.  Formula feeders.

The following is a series of vignettes on different types of formula feeding mothers.  After all, each mother has her own unique set of circumstances.  Each example is followed by the correct lactavist response.  You may want to take notes.  There will be a quiz at the end.

Type A

The type A formula feeding mother is very aggressive.  She sulks, has angry hair, a sigh in her eyes and is At The End of Her Tether.  Her clothes don't match, she has only one earring in, and two different shoes on.  Her baby is quite well presented, but there is a smell of baby sick on the mother and all over the pram.  She has a bottle holder on the back of the pram, which holds a large bottle of already used formula.  The correct response to this mother feeding her baby is:

... look at the baby and say "My, what a lovely baby you have."  Smile.

Type B

The type B formula feeding mother is very scary.  She is impeccably dressed in a smart linen suit.  Her hair is not only in style, and in place, but it smells of fresh apples.  Her make up is immaculate and her nails are pink and shiny and all the same length - long.  Her baby is in some sort of outfit that you are sure you remember seeing in Vogue.  She has a nanny, and a body guard.  She is holding her baby and cooing at it as she feeds it from a tub of pre-mixed UHT formula with a disposable one-use chuck in the bin push in teat.  The correct response to this mother feeding her baby is:

... look at the baby and say "My, what a lovely baby you have."  Smile.

Type C

The type C formula feeding mother is easy to miss.  She's neat and tidy, with no air of desperation or baby sick.  She slips easily into the background of any picture.  She probably has an older child with her and is managing both the toddler and the baby, without turning a hair.  You nearly didn't notice her, you just caught her smile at the toddler looking up at her.  She sits quietly to one side, and pulls out of her bag a flask with hot water in it, which she mixes with powder in a bottle.  She is amazingly deft, and you wonder how often you've missed her before.  She soothes the baby as the formula cools, and keeps the toddler interested in a butterfly that's dancing past them.  The correct response to this mother feeding her baby is:

... look at the baby and say "My, what a lovely baby you have."  Smile.






Type D

The type D formula feeder is very hard to spot.  She's pulled over on the edge of the play park, with a cover over her babies head, as she holds the baby to her breast.  However, if you look closely, you'll see the bulge of the formula feed dispenser in between her breasts, and a small tube running from it.  The baby hungrily devours at the breast, whilst the mother blushes and re-adjust her covering to hide everything from sight.  The correct response to this mother feeding her baby is:

... look at the baby's toes as she strokes them and say "My, what a lovely baby you have."  Smile.


Type E

The Type E mother is hard to ignore.  She has four whiney brats all around her, of varying ages and degrees of clothing.  Her hair is scraped back in a tight ponytale, and slick from hair gell.  She has cigarette ash down her front, her bra is three sizes too small and she's wearing a onesie in pink leopard print.  She talks loudly on her mobile phone and you can't repeat her language.  (She uses 'fuck' a lot, for those who don't quite get that.)  Her baby sits in its own, matching, pink lepard spot onesie and has pierced ears.  You know the women is called Chantelle as her tatoos tell you so.  She plugs a baby bottle into the baby's mouth whilst talking on the phone.  The correct response to this mother feeding her baby is:

... look at the baby and say "My, what a lovely baby you have."  Smile.




There are a variety of other mothers, no doubt some of you will add some in the comments.  Please do!  I want to hear more, and what the correct lactavist response to such mothers is.  But I'm afraid this large Gin & Tonic are calling now.  So I'll post instead.

After all, you don't need many more examples, do you?

Penny Smith

I'm getting a lot of good feed back for the BBC London interview I did this morning, on the TIME cover controversy.

Now, as you know, I've had some difficulties at times, on radio interviews, including being thrown off the World Service.

And many of you have complained, endlessly, and ceaselessly, about media bias and bigotry about women, mothers, and breastfeeding.  You've written, phone, emailed and blogged your outrage and demand higher quality from both the BBC, and their journalists.

Well, today you have a brilliant opportunity, to write in and thank them for just that - excellent quality and an excellent journalist.

Penny Smith, who conducted my interview today, is responsible for how good it was.  The research team at BBC London, who phoned me this morning at 8.05am, are responsible for how good it was.

Good journalism.  An excellent intro by Penny Smith, and her letting me speak without attacking, belittling, taking exception or holding me and other women up to ridicule.

This is EXACTLY the standard we look for from the BBC.  And if we want to see more of it, we need to make our voices heard.  It's easy to be the one that always complains.  It's harder to be the one to take the time and effort to say 'Well Done".  It easy to pick up the phone and rant, when you are inflamed.  It's easy to email, when you're in a temper.  The temper drives you.

Finding time to sit down and say "Great" in a busy day is harder.  Please try and find that time.

The interview can be heard HERE.  Go to 1.29 on the cursor.  The item starts at 1.29 and finishes at 1.40.

Please email Penny Smith and say 'Thank You'.  Please email the Vanessa Feltz Show, and say "Penny was great this morning."

Please email BBC London, and say "Great Job" for Penny Smith this morning.  10.30 am, BBC London, Friday May 11th.

AND  (Really Important)

Please email, write or phone the BBC central line, and do the same.  If you want to see better coverage, real journalism, and good interviews, you have to tell them when they did it right!  Please?  Now?  Thank you!

The Standard of Journalism You Get, Is In Your Hands!  

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20120521,00.html  May 21. 2012

Slightly annoyed the boy is wearing combat trousers.  But I do understand that boy's clothes are difficult to buy.  It probably didn't occur to anyone, to juxtaposition the 'feeding child' in combat gear, to undercut/underline the grown up male aspect.

Probably.

So want this framed and on the wall!  :-)

And yes, it does say 'driven to extremes' and it's unlikely that the article is going to be a good one.  But it's mainstream, folks.  The agenda is out there, up front, and being taken seriously.  Winning is in the little things changing in the press, not expecting it all to be perfect and exactly like you'd want it to be if you wrote it.

But let me do just say in advance: don't read the comments!  Just look at the picture on the newsstands, and smile.

What's even more awesome, this is also an adoptive mother.  Yes, an adoptive mother breastfeeding on the cover of Time and talking about it inside!   :-)

The article the cover relates to, can be found here:  http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2114427,00.html?xid=fblike

Article with the Mum in photo above:
http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/10/q-a-with-jamie-lynne-grumet/

Alma Mater

            ‘What is that stench, how can she make such a foul odour?’ 

            Although quiet, and polite, Alma’s husband could hear the repulsion in her tone: could hear her muscles clenching and her body turning to piano wire as she spoke.

            ‘Don’t speak like that in front of Catherine, she can hear you.’  Acutely aware of his wife’s moods, his own words were muted and light, with an attempt at humour.  He smiled down at three week old Catherine, and rubbed her belly with a light tickle.

            ‘Oh don’t do that, she doesn’t want a poo-ey hand touching her.  Haven’t you finished?’

            James had indeed finished changing the nappy.  Poor Catherine had seemed a little constipated, and had squealed and cried and turned bright red as she howled.  He’d come home from work to be greeted by the shrieks from the pram in the outer porch whilst Alma had been finishing making dinner in the kitchen.

            Alma liked dinner to be on the table in front of him as he walked in the door at 6.15.  The screeching from Catherine had been matched by the icy silence from Alma, as he entered at 5.55.  Prior to his daughter’s birth, he’d have hung around at the train station until he could walk in the door at the correct moment.  Now, his desire to hold his daughter in his arms, lift her up and cuddle her, and have that bit more time with her before she was sentenced to the bedroom at 7.15, over rode other considerations.

            Alma was furious on two counts.  One, he’d come home ‘early’ and two, dinner wasn’t nearly ready.  Catherine, it transpired, had been an absolute nightmare all day.  Crying, refusing to sleep, refusing to swallow all her bottle, and deliberately vomiting up her milk on her nice clean clothes.

            ‘Honestly James, she is just like you.  She never listens and does exactly what she wants.’  Alma had stirred the bolognaise sauce she was working on with such speed it slopped out onto the cooker.

            ‘Now look what she’s made me do!’  Alma took the saucepan off the ring and washed down the cooker top before putting it back on and continuing the frantic swirling.

            James had smiled a smile of consolation and comfort, picked up Catherine and taken her upstairs.  Twenty minutes later, with her tummy rubbed and her legs bicycled up and down, she’d finally managed to get rid of the thing that was hurting her, and had stopped crying.  James had cleaned her up and was just about to put the new nappy on, when Alma had arrived to comment on the smell, and to state that dinner was on the table.  James thanked his wife and carried Catherine back down the stairs.  He placed her in the little Moses basket his mother had given them, and watched her look around as he ate his spaghetti.

            ‘I wish you wouldn’t keep looking at her like that, she’ll get spoiled.  She has to learn she’s not the centre of the Universe.’

            James smiled and carried on eating, carried on gazing at his beloved Catherine.

*

            The shrieks were ear piercing.  James felt his nerve begin to break.  He’d been pacing the living room for over an hour, despite Alma’s promises that it wouldn’t go on for more than ten minutes.  So far he’d kept to his side of the bargain: not to interfere, not to intrude on her authority as the mother.  But the feeling of his skin searing off his body, and fear knotting up his stomach, was becoming impossible to ignore.  Every one of Catherine’s screams and wails was killing him.  He could feel his heart jumping in response.  He gave in to his instincts and went upstairs.

            Alma was sitting outside the nursery, reading her Women’s Weekly.  She’d put her chair in front of the door, barring the way.  She looked up at him as he emerged onto the landing.  Her eyes rolled and the magazine was put down with a huff.

            ‘Oh for goodness sake, James!  She’s perfectly all right!’ 

            ‘She doesn’t sound all right.’  He’d had to raise his voice to be heard above the cries.

            ‘She is warm, well fed, safe and comfortable.  I double filled her bottle to get her through the night and her nappy is dry.  There is nothing wrong with her.’

            ‘She’s lonely!’  His voice raised until it was almost matching Alma’s extortions.

            ‘She’s in a TEMPER.  You don’t propose to raise a spoilt brat, do you?’

            ‘She’s six months old, how can she be spoiled?’

            ‘Easily, with you around.  Always picking her up, cuddling her, telling her what a good girl she is.  Always rushing to her for the slightest whimper.  You’ve caused this!’

            James stared at his wife.  The schism that existed in their world had never seemed so great, so profound.

            ‘How can you bear to hear her in pain like this?’

            ‘She is not in pain.  She’s in a temper, and heaven knows, if we don’t control it now, we’ll have worse to come.’  Alma seemed not to hear the pain in James’s voice.  ‘She has to learn to sleep, and this is how she’ll do it.  Not by being mollycoddled by you.’

            Alma picked the magazine back up and purposely stared at the pages.  James had been dismissed.  Short of physically pushing her out of the chair to get to the nursery, there was nothing he could do.  He stormed back down the stairs, pulled his coat off the hook, and left.

            ‘Another night at the pub whilst I do the hard work.’ Alma spoke out loud, as if addressing the baby through the door.

            ‘Now see what you have done...’

*

            James opened the door at 6.13.  ‘I’m home!’

            Alma smiled her greeting, and her thanks, as she placed the dinner out on the table.

            ‘Smells good!’ said James, as he hung up his coat.  ‘I’ll just wash my hands.’  He ducked into the down stairs toilet that Alma had had installed under the stairs.  She was immensely pleased with this civilised addition to the house.  James would have preferred... well, quite a lot of things, actually, but it was keeping Alma happy.

            Alma was settling Catherine into the high chair, as he seated himself.  Beef Cobbler was one of his favourites: once again, Alma was showing her thanks for him giving in on the extension.

            ‘Well, how have my girls been today?’

            Frost formed in the air as Alma launched into her tirade of how trying her day had been.  James tried to tune it out, and concentrate on Catherine, who was playing with a rattle he’d bought for her, but it was difficult.

            ‘...And then she spit up all over her new bib.  I’d starched it too, when I ironed it, and she got bits in the little embroidery roses.  I’ll never get them looking that good again...’

            ‘Tut,’ said James, quietly.  He winked at Catherine.  Alma didn’t pause for breath.

            ‘... so I tried the new banana one, and she spat that out too.  I mean, what child doesn’t like mashed banana?  It took me an hour to get that jar into her.  I was exhausted by the time for her nap, and then she threw up all over her clean bedding, so I had to re-feed her and do the bed linen...’

            James spooned down his dinner, trying to juggle his attention between the women in his life.  Alma would erupt if she felt she wasn’t getting enough, or that Catherine was getting too much.  All he wanted was to beam and smile at Catherine, and talk to her in little whispers and tickle her until she started to hiccup with laughter.  He nodded and smiled at Alma enough times to keep her mollified whilst giving Catherine his secret smile and pulling faces that Alma couldn’t see.  Catherine giggled.  Alma droned on...

            ‘Claire was round, and she said little Emily never spits out her food, and every scrap is taken from the jar...and heaven knows Emily doesn’t manage to stink out the room every time she breathes...’

            Catherine dropped the rattle on the floor as she squealed in laughter. 

            ‘That’s it, that’s the third time today.’ As James had leaned down to pick up the rattle, Alma swooped up Catherine.  A sharp slap and a sharper cry rent the air, and James’s heart.

            ‘Never, never, never, do that again.’  On each ‘never’, Alma slapped the back of Catherine’s hand hard.  Catherine’s howls became screams, as Alma whisked her up the stairs.  ‘When will you learn?’

            James looked at his beef congealing into the gravy, as he heard the uproar upstairs as Catherine was stripped of her clothes, pushed and pulled into a sleep suit, and the door firmly closed on her cries.  By the time Alma came back downstairs he was in the pub.

            

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Having gone through all my posts, I've found that all these images have been deleted out by Blogger/Google.

No notifications.  No warnings.  Nothing.  Found by accident.  One post deleted entirely.  I'll leave you to decide what's wrong with all these....

http://one-of-those-women.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/male-gaze-falls-on-the-nursing-mother.html

http://one-of-those-women.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/and-on-subject-of-farce.html

http://one-of-those-women.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/censored-by-google.html

http://one-of-those-women.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/censored-by-google.html

http://one-of-those-women.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/distraught-mother-speaks-hey-facebook.html

http://one-of-those-women.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/last-taboo.html (I put it back!)

Hey Blogger - delete this one, go on, I dare you!!!!

One of this things I detested, and still detest, about raising a child, is when other people state "I could see it in his eyes."  The first time this was actually used about my child, was when he'd been jumping on a couch, age 3.  A family member had asked him not to jump on the couch.  He'd never been asked not to jump on the couch before.  He was 3.  He carried on jumping on the couch.  When I came in, I took him aside and explained clearly that the rule in the house we were in, was that you didn't jump on the couch.  He looked at me and nodded, and didn't jump on the couch.

At home, I let him jump on the couch.  So he had been really confused by the request not to.

The family member who observed me discuss this with him, then lambasted me for being too soft.  When I explained to her that he hadn't actually understood what she meant, she laughed.  "He's much smarter than you think.  He understood everything I said.  He just knew he could ignore me.  I saw it in his eyes... "

This phrase "I saw it in her/his eyes..." haunted my childhood.  I well remember adults - parents, teachers, family members - berating me for something and seeing my response, in my eyes.  I was rebellious, cheeky, conniving, manipulative, lying... all could be discerned by the look in my eyes.  Confused, was never a feature.

I spent a lot of my childhood confused.  About arbitrary rules and dictates, unreliable rules and guidance and completely confusing messages.  My confusion was never mirrored by the adults, however.  They always knew what I was really thinking and feeling.  They would regularly inform me, they could "see it in my eyes..."

It's such a catch 22.  You can't defend against it, as you are saying the person looking at you is wrong.  And as you are rarely in a pleasant and easy place when this pronouncement has been made.  People rarely say "You are a lovely person, who understands what's going on so clearly, I can see it in your eyes... "  Such statements are usually reserved for the tense, awkward, accusatory silences.  For the moments of mis-communication between people.

For the moment when the other person, is imposing on us, their world view.

For when they speak, they speak what they fear you are thinking.  It's very, very rarely, what's actually going on.  It's that the face you are showing without speech... is being written upon by the other person.  They are writing out their own feelings,. and thoughts, and fear, on you.  Every school child knows this, when they are told to "wipe the smile off your face..."  It's a natural human instinct to smile in certain situations of fear and tension: to try and look innocent and nonthreatening.  How many times were you told to wipe the smile off your face, and to stop smirking, when you were shaking in your boots?  Me too.

The human propensity for reading meaning into an expressionless face has been well known for some time.  In the 1920s, Lev Kuleshov, a Soviet film maker, did a series of experiments that proved insight into this phenomenon.  He filmed human faces, in a bland, non-meaningful stance.  He then inter-cut the same image, on a montage, a sequence, of other objects.   A bowl of soup, a funeral casket etc.  Without exception, the audience raved about the emotional power of the actor.  The same face, inter-cut with different images, was applauded as the face that portrayed hunger, sadness, grief, anger, fear... the face image had not changed.  All that had changed, was the context that face was put in, by the images then put around the face.

The audience would take the clues, and read into the face, what they wanted to see.

The audience would do the work.  All the while, saying how wonderfully the actor had portrayed the emotions.

Truth, is in the eye of the beholder.  Especially when nothing is actually said.  Give a face, even a blank face, and do not speak... and the person looking at you, will say "I knew what that face was saying... I saw it in the eyes...."

Which brings us to this:

• Anonymous
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 6 January 2012 22.59 GMT
• Article history

And very often it's ... "Gosh, what a pretty baby, and isn't that a lovely top, wonder where she got it..?"

And quite often it's "I wonder if I paid the gas bill on time..."

Prejudice comes from words, actions, deeds.  Not telepathic reading of the eyes.  Of knowing 'what that look means'.

No matter how insecure you are feeling: you need to actually check out the reality you are in, without your fears at play.  And you certainly can't condemn everyone around you for the LOOK you are seeing in their eyes.

And I'm fed up apologising for breast-feeding.  I suspect you are too.  :-)

ps  Don't let the 3 year old jump on the couch.  The 6 year old will destroy it.  :-)

Frida Kahlo

Salma Hayek

Benetton

Peaceful Parenting

The Wet Nurse

The Milk From Hera's Breast

Due to some significant personal issues that are affecting my family, I've had to resign from any involvement with Breastfeeding Picnic and Nursing Matters.

Nursing Matters is therefore closed for referrals.  Some sort of info will go up at some point, on the web pages but everything else will be shut down.

Breastfeeding Picnic has a pretty universal life of its own anyway.  :-)

We always had very informal structures, that reflected we were Just Mums on the end of the phone, or the internet connection... so there is no great 'thing' to hand over.  Just that of the bunch of intelligent, motivated and loud mouthed Mums (and Dads, and other adults with heart and conscience) could advocate and support on behalf of Mums and kids.

All those wonderful women are still out there, and I imagine there will be no real change in help and support.

I, however, am not capable of keeping up with it at the moment, and so have to concentrate on my family.

As I said in my last post, I rarely post here anyway now!  You're all out there doing it.

copyright Cavendish Press

"Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed.  

A little late this year.  Letting you know.  A combination of circumstances - changing the admin structure, my moving to rural Scotland, a very long turnaround on the permissions from Westminster, due to massive changes brought by the new Gov.  And, of course, we moved it forward a month.  Some of us haven't realised it's June yet.  :-)

DO NOTE THAT EACH PICNIC HAS ITS OWN DATE!

People wanted flexibility.  So do check the DATE of your local one.  :-)

Breastfeeding Picnics are first and foremost about turning up, having fun with other parents, and going home.  During this fun time, breastfeeding will take place as a normal part of human activity.  That's actually the most important bit.  Breastfeeding in public is about hungry babies, requiring milk.  That's all.  Hungry babies get milk. Simples!

In Scotland, it is that simple.  There is a law protecting any caregiver, giving any milk, to a child anywhere the child has a right to be.  The caregiver can not be threatened or asked to stop the feed.  To do so, is an offence, liable to a hefty fine.

In England and Wales, there is no such protection.  For a detailed understanding of this, read the posts here with the Breastfeeding Picnic tag, and the Equalities Act tag.

Breastfeeding Picnics are run by mothers, for mothers.  All parents welcome.  All mothers, fathers, grans and grandads.  All babies, all feeding methods.  Hungry babies need milk: don't matter if it's from breast or bottle, Mama or Otherwise.  Hungry babies get fed.  End of.

All are run by volunteers, all take control of their own event.  There is no uber organisation.  Just Mums.  :-)

Go along, show your support, feed your babies.  And invite your local MP too!

If you were, and you were in Britain, you might like to take part in the May 12th Mass Observation diary.

Mass Observation has been running in Britain for decades, and records daily life and activities for posterity.  Everyday people record what they are doing, doing everyday things.  The records are then open to historians and researchers, and can be used to gain an insight about what was going on with the 'masses' at any given time.

Yesterday was a Mass Observation day, for recording a journal entry from you, about your every day life.  E-mail only, and it goes into a database to be used in the future.

Why should it be important that you were breastfeeding yesterday?

I'm glad you asked.  It's important, as you were doing an everyday thing.  It's also important if you were doing other everyday things, like baby wearing, bed sharing and cuddling your baby if it was distressed.  And it's important because... well, imagine it's the year 2111.  Researchers are trying to gain an idea about parenting techniques in Britain one hundred years ago.  So they look at old television programmes, adverts, newspaper article and movies from 2011, to see how it was done then.

And what do they find?

They find Gina Ford, Jo Frost and advice on how to Cry It Out.  They find that mothers adored the new follow-on milk, and it was advertised heavily.  They read that mothers were told how to train and control their children and how to ignore their baby tyrants from day one.

That's the impression you'd get from us, from the major media sources around us today.  Is that how you parent?

Let's make sure the future knows how we are parenting, today.  Write a journal for yesterday, and post it to Mass Observation.  Email only.

Speak now, on how you do things, and let history record it.  Mamas in the future may need the support!  :-)

Freedom, Fairness and .... Equality

As we announced last year, we're changing the time of the Breastfeeding Picnics, from a weekday to the weekend.  We had run them, concentrating on Westminster, during the last week of Parliament before the Summer Recess.  This was to allow members of both the Commons, and the Lords, to attend.

However, we found that most MPs reported they'd be more likely to make a local picnic, in their area, over the weekend.  And that many Mums felt they couldn't attend mid-week.

So we moved the dates.  :-)

This year's Picnics will run over the Weekend on June 18th and 19th.  It is up to the local organiser, if they go for the Saturday or the Sunday.  Most will run for 3 or 4 hours, with a very fluid drop by between x and y, times.

So, keep out for a list here, on the picnics running in June, and ask yourself if you want to run one.  Running one couldn't be easier.  Just decide the place, and let us know.  We'll send you a couple of information sheets, giving tips on what to do.

All you really have to do, is join Yahoo, so you can join in the Yahoo group.  It's very low maintenance, with just some discussion around setting up one a year.  You can also download the So You Want To Hold A Breastfeeding Picnic and tip sheet, from there.  It's moderated, so just give your name and where you want to hold one, and you'll be let in: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/Breastfeeding_Picnic/

You can also join the Facebook Page, and hold your own 'even't page from there:  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18703668386   but the help to set up comes from the yahoo space.

It doesn't matter how big, or small, a Breastfeeding Picnic is.  All that matter if that Mums and Kids get together in the sun,and have fun, and raise the awareness that breastfeeding is a perfectly normal OUTDOOR activity.  We'd especially like some more in Scotland, as it is about everyone having the same rights.

So you there!  :-)

Well, who'd'v'thunk it?  Something useful has come from the Equalities Act debacle!

For newer readers, we have been campaigning for years, to get at least equivalent protection for breastfeeding in public spaces in England & Wales, and Northern Ireland, as exist in very fortunate Scotland.

The last Labour Government put together a huge Equalities Act, with lots of decent legislation.  But the breastfeeding protection was a joke - nothing at all in public spaces, and mothers had to sue privately if it was goods and services.  Loads of confusion about ages and pathways to sue.

HOWEVER.

And it's such a nice however...  UK Gov has published this handy dandy gorgeous little leaflet.  It's a business handy guide to the Equalities Act.  As such, it is very condensed, and contains bullet points, not long detail.

So it contains, on page 4, this LOVELY detail:

So there you go mothers.  Go to the website, print off this nice little leaflet, and fold it into your bag, pocket or changing stuff.  Print off several,  Highlight the correct bit.  Hand them out!

Yes, it is missing essential detail.  But it does so in a way that is so very very very useful.  For scaring the arrogance out of people in shops and cafes!

Crown copyright leaflet, July 2010   JN40172  What an amazing little resource you are!  :-)

PDF: Here

I've been asked to repost here, in an open forum, two comments I made about the informed milk sharing, in the past 24 hours.  You can see by the context, I'm discussing attitudes to milk sharing, and the female body.  You can also tell by the picture, and the title, my thoughts on the position we put mothers into, when discussing this.  :-)  The comments stand alone, but I'll ask permission for the post I'm responding to on number one, to be published here - when the poster wakes up on the other side of the planet!

EDIT: permission given.  And can I just thank Karleen Gribble and award her the Nobel No Prize, for "peer to peer milk sharing" and the apt and accurate comparison between bed, and milk, sharing.  Go Karleen!

-o0o-

No one is minimising risks, or invalidating actual risks.


But the construction that women are inherently diseased, and must be tested and tested and tested, to maintain their purity, is one we cannot allow to stand.


That we live in a society where women are healthier, better fed, more intelligent and have more power to make informed decisions, than has ever occurred on the planet before... that is what needs to be the opening statement.   In that context, other women are a resource to help keep our babies alive.. a resource that has to be looked at where the majority of women are perfectly acceptable donors, with some work done to ensure risk has been minimised... is the one we should be aiming for.


That wonderful Chinese police officer, who breastfed, and kept alive safely, 5 babies, in an emergency, would, in terms of this discussion, being told to let them die, rather than infect them with whatever she couldn't prove she didn't have?  She was breastfeeding her own baby, so what?  She's AUTOMATICALLY too dangerous to feed another without a battery of testing? 


The irony here, is that we're asking for a level of purity that is nigh on impossible, from the cleanest, safest, healthiest nations on earth.


And this notion that we must assume disease, rather than work with each individual circumstance, is going to do so much harm, and harm so many babies, if we let this myth be constructed around us.


The vast majority of mothers in the countries considering milk sharing (which requires a huge amount of hygiene and money rich resources) have all been tested during their own pregnancy, just prior to their lactation.  Certainly, in the USA, where litigation is a more everyday fact of life, then more caution would have to be used.  but that's about context.


The spectrum of mothers available for donation, starts with the VAST majority being perfectly safe to donate, and all of whom, just about, have the blood work to prove it.  Only when you get into tiny percentages of overall population, do you run into the TINY percentage of the population, that should not donate.


Whilst we continue to discuss the entire spectrum as only the TINY minority, babies will be harmed.


Already, in the USA, double the newborns on formula, die as on breastmilk.  Seeing every mother who may give life giving milk to a baby without enough, as Typhoid Mary, is simply obscene.  And ignores the science, and the general population's actual behaviour and health.


Again, that heart warming story of the baby being breastfed by 5 young mothers, on a rota, as the baby's mother died in childbirth... gone.  That baby is now on formula. 


The double standard here is that you are asking more of a woman, than you are of a cow.  Even when we know the cow's milk has potentially lethal contamination in up to 14% of the product.  Yes, there is merit in the cross-species argument, versus same species, but that's part of the balance of risks for that individual baby - not a huge banner statement that infection and disease is running rife through our mothers and babies.


And we know that far LESS than 14% of the lactating population, is a risk.  And that's before we get to the fact that most women are looking at both screening, and home flash heating with donated milk.


I can see a doctor's office, in the not to distant future, where a Dr is telling a mother not to breastfeed her own baby, until she can prove her milk is safe. 


And the seeds of that horrible vision, are being sown in here, right now.


I grew up in a world where doctors and scientists had told mothers not to breastfeed, as their milk was not good enough.  I cannot comprehend that returning via well meaning intentions on fear based philosophies.  And you will see it rise, I can assure you, in the wake of these discussions on the automatic dangers of diseased women, and their polluting bodily fluids, that must be sanctified as 'safe'... by science and technology.


The risks are relatively small, the base population immensely healthy.  The way to mitigate the risks, quite easy and manageable.  The decision, the mother's.  She should be supported in her decision, in either direction.  That's the baseline.


I've stood by women who are HIV positive, who were being told needlessly, that their babies would be removed at birth, and they would never see them again, if they breastfed.  I've listened to their anger, and their fury, and their fear.  I've heard them cry. I've had to inform them of the dangers of the drugs they were being forced to take, to dry their milk.  When there is no reason for this AT ALL.  


Stand by the women I've stood by, and listen to their pain.  You may find yourself reflecting on how healthy our society is, rather than how diseased it is.  And how 'choice' is a dangerous, and load bearing, responsibility, that neither assumes, nor negates, hope.

An urgent health alert has been widely circulated today, by ManHood Health, the world's largest health agency.  In a dramatic and quite clumsy fashion, ManHood Health made the following statement:

"It has come to our attention at ManHood Health, that women are gossiping on the internet.  Usually, we're fine about this, as the internet can be an excellent source of recipe ideas and general household support.  In fact, my wife got a stain out of my ManHood Science White Coat, just last week.  However, things took a serious turn, when my wife pointed out that a fellow woman, had posted about not using cow's milk to feed babies, but using human milk.  We looked at the site, and discovered it was true.  So we just had to act, by making this worldwide statement:

Can you see aureole?  Can you see a nipple?  And I've enlarged it!

Protest Group Here.

*sigh*

Record of all photos deleted by Facebook as obscene, here.


Protest group: here.