June 21, 2005

• "WHY THE FUSS ABOUT BREASTS? THEY ARE JUST PROTRUSIONS TO NOURISH BABIES" -- so now you tell me!!
• http://animatedboobs.com/
• I found rxreed's link to be more informative.
• Dirtypillowsfilter.
• You know, without nipples, breasts are just bags of fat.
• Time to glue a coupla thimbles on the ol' suet sacks, yep.
• Men are such sick fucks. /burns monkey bra in protest.
• When I see women obviously breast-feeding their babies in public, I have a great respect. It's functional, not sexual. But I don't quite get this site's obsession, with all the pictures and stuff. It's like reform school for titfans.
• the site is interesting, and I certainly think it is good, and important, to promote a culture in which women can accept and be happy with their own natural breasts, in all their varieties. however, I find the degree of the pro-breast feeding (boobs are fer feedin' babies) and anti-bra sentiments a bit dogmatic and heavy-handed. as a woman without children, or the desire to have children, I certain do not think my breasts are superfluous or useless. breasts are in fact "secondary sexual characteristics" and thats ok. that fact can be separated from the socialized tendency to objectify women/women's body parts etc., as for the bra stuff, I think these women need to go out and get a good fitting and find the right bras. mine never hurt me and I dont wear them because I mindlessly think I must, I choose to. I dont where them to titilate (pun intended, d'oh!!) others, but for my own comfort.... boobs rock!
• boobs rock! Why, yes. Yes, they do. And I'd like to take this opportunity to thank y'all for having them. *goes looking for Mrs. Tool to thank her personally*
• We believe women were not created as sexual objects to be looked upon as some kind of "toys", and breasts were not created for that purpose either I don't understand what that sentence means, and I don't understand that sentence either.
• Oh, I see it.
• I like how its tries to foster good old fashioned puritanical guilt about normal sexual urges, but is disguised as some sort of educational site! And gotta love that gallery of disgusting breasts.
• I have always, and will continue to be, staunchly pro-knocker.
• Breast feeding in public now! Starting with me...
• I wish I could go without a bra - but it's just not comfortable. Maybe if I had better chest muscles, but I'm a lazy nerd. That said, well designed sports bras are amazing - comfortable and supportive.
• This site's got some great tits, and it's informative too!
• We believe women were not created as sexual objects to be looked upon as some kind of "toys", and breasts were not created for that purpose either Doesn't really explain titwanks does it?
• rxreed's boobies link is hypnotic stuff. So..many..boobies. off to shake my own boobies...
• Tits
• Anyone follow the Barbara Walter's incident? A few words come to mind...
• You know, the link says that the WHO recommends breastfeeding for at least one year, and perferrably two, for the health of the child (introducing solid food, of course, but pairing that with breast milk for some time). Yet in the West, this would be looked on as suspicious, even creepy. Even I would find breastfeeding a toddler strange, though I can recognise that from a nutritional point of view as well as psychological, it could be much better to feed longer than most women do. That said, my aunt, who was very pro breastmilk (even going to the bother to pump, and it is a bother) said she knew when she had to wean - when her daughter got teeth at nine months, and bit down, HARD.
• >Yet in the West, this would be looked on as suspicious, even creepy. The WHO also reports the world average age at which children are weaned as more than four years. My daughter was breastfed as a toddler, and anybody who thought it was suspicious-even-creepy was welcome to rediscover the lost art of minding their own damn business. In the West, breastfeeding is weirder than breast implants... methinks something is amiss.
• I always said I'd stop nursing before the child was old enough to ask/climb up for access, just because that was my personal preference. I lasted around seven months, when it just got too frustrating (and painful) trying to feed a kid who wanted to look around at the world while eating. This time around I'm taking the wait-and-see approach. I was just recently looking at the WHO's website because I find it irritating that participating countries are not permitted to advertise baby formula or give away samples, or provide any products that would promote something other than breastfeeding. (There's a TV ad here for formula, but it's toddler formula which is apparently okay.) I'm definitely suspicious of the WHO's average that Stan the Bat quotes above. Four years? That means there's a whole lot of kids breastfeeding through their childhood. Not even developing countries do that. Mind you, there was that woman in the US last year (?) who was charged with neglect for admitting on a talk show that she breastfed her eight-year-old. Maybe it's more common than I thought, but kept very, very quiet.
• >Not even developing countries do that. Are you sure about that? I've read otherwise. But we did natural childbirth and natural everydamnthing, and one does tend to find information that supports one's conclusions. At any rate, I think it's less unusual than you'd think; people who do it tend not to advertise the fact precisely because people who don't do it tend to think it's weird and gross. We certainly know a lot of families who made choices similar to ours.
• Breast-feeding is great for those who are prepared for the sacrifices. I got very frustrated when I discovered that I couldn't eat chocolate and spicey foods without it blasting out the diaper. Then there was the mastitis, or whatever it is in people. There was no LaLeche around back then. 't was udderly ridiculous.
• Out of curiosity, at what point was your daughter weaned? The oldest breastfed child that I know personally was 16 months at time of weaning. It's acceptable here, I think, but sort of in a condescending "Look at the hippies" way. It's a weird situation, because on the one hand you get pressure as a mother from groups like the WHO that push breastfeeding as the only and healthy option, and on the other you get your local society saying that breastfeeding an older baby, let alone a preschooler, is odd. From memory (and I can't even think of a good source to back myself up -- this is what I recall from my inattentive university years), mothers in developing regions will breastfeed until the child is around three or four, when they're old enough to not be in a sling and to help provide the food they'll consume. The age gap therefore between children is around 3-4 years. (That's a terrible explanation, sorry.) I always liked saying "lactational amenorhoea". Can't spell it to save myself, though.
• Breast feeding a child for longer is a good way to space children. They think that's one of the reasons why Tudor families were spaced the way they were.
• I find it irritating that participating countries are not permitted to advertise baby formula or give away samples, or provide any products that would promote something other than breastfeeding. Well, I don't know if you're aware of this, but there is a reason for it. Infant formula, and the way it was marketed in the 70s and 80s, led to the deaths of millions of babies in the third world. Led by Nestle, the formula industry targeted young mothers in its adverts, leading them to believe that feeding their children formula would make for healthy babies (not untrue). Except these people didn't know how to make it properly, or they couldn't afford to keep buying it, so they tried to stretch it over longer periods of time. Free samples became a problem as well: companies would give them away; mom's breastmilk would dry up; and the mother would run out of money to pay for more formula. To be fair to Nestle and the rest of industry, though, probably they didn't forsee this at the outset. But there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that they realized what was going on and did nothing about it for years. It was more profitable to ignore the problems, which, in this case, meant dead babies. But pressure mounted, boycotts were levied, and the WHO Code was developed to deal with the problem after it became clear that third world governments had neither the will nor the ability to fix things themselves. This is a classic case history in applied ethics classes. I thought it was fairly common knowledge, actually.
• Yeah I've heard this. Because the formula was so expensive mothers were cutting back on the correct dosage eg using 1 tablespoon instead of two. Babies were dying of malnourishment. I think from memory there may have other problems such as not having access to clean water. The formula was being mixed with unsanitary water which also caused deaths.
• I like teh boobies, but I'm more of an ass guy. On a tangential note, I'm glad that we don't really see women assfeeding their children in public.
• If you don't put enough formula in the bottle -- and yes, it's expensive -- the kid gets diarrhoea. Too much and it's constipation.
• Well, the pendulum has swung the other way. Lots of new mothers who don't breastfeed are harrassed by family and even strangers because of it. I'm sure it varies by region. Not every mother can breastfeed, and not every mother can breastfeed for, um, four years. Not every mother should breastfeed. I think people have gotten the message: breastfeeding is much better for the infant. Stop and consider that someone who isn't might have a good reason. And mother drive-bys are never right.
• I'd heard about the clean water issue and that's a good reason to promote breastfeeding. But surely in countries where mothers are (presumably) well educated and (mostly) economically able to care for their children, there's no reason not to make both options known. The WHO's documentation doesn't even allow for medical institutions to discuss bottle feeding, even if full of expressed milk, because using a bottle isn't as effective. I find it hard to conceive (har de har) of mothers underfeeding their child, but when your milk has dried up and you've got no money, it's got to be a desperate thing to do.
• My mother's a pediatric nurse at a moderate sized pediatric practice (all the doctors are women, by the way). She's the nurse manager, too. They also have two full-time lactation nurses. They're beginning to see a number of infants that are underfed because the mother has milk production problems but won't consider formula feeding as a supplement (or alternative).
• >It's acceptable here, I think, but sort of in a condescending "Look at the hippies" Yeah, well, we probably resemble that remark. I *think* our daughter went until she was a few months older than two, but I don't remember all that well. My memory ain't what it used to be (cackles toothlessly; settles back into rocker).
• tracicle - I think that's because in countries where water is safe, which tend to be heavily developed ones, there is still plenty of information about bottle feeding - doctor's offices have lots of stuff on formula, supplied by the formula makers. Everyone I know was also given going home kits with diapers and formula from sponsers. I can understand why the WHO is really trying to push breastfeeding, especially as they probably have more influence in developing countries than developed. Now there is a new problem - it turns out that HIV transfer is greatly reduced if women do not breatfeed. So now, to try to reduce the spread of HIV, some advocates are trying to get women esp in Africa to use formula. Still doesn't do anything about the cost or clean water issue. It's jumping out of the fire, but still landing in the frying pan. kmellis - I'm glad to hear that there are lactating nurses. That's the kind of support we need here. My neice's mother actually had a terrible time breastfeeding, and my neice became very undernourished and failed to thrive because of it, but no one knew why for a while.
• All this said, as a childless student who has trouble looking after a cat - when I eventually have children (sometime next decade), I'm totally breastfeeding them. I've been dragging around these annoying lumps for the last 17 years, and spending a fortune on bras, and I want to get some damn good use out of them, finally!
• kmellis is right about how formula was promulgated in the '70's. When I started my daughter on it there was the opposite problem to deal with, in that she started a massive growth spurt and became very tubby. Since I had a farm and a milking cow at the time, I switched her over to milk straight from the udder and eventually reduced the fat content of that until I could visually see some harmony in bone and flesh. Regardless of the flak I received for that, I knew even then, that the building of excessive fat cells so early in life was the harbinger of future problems. Unfortunately she still has a perpetual crusade with weight control and I regret not acting sooner than I did.
• Stop and consider that someone who isn't [breastfeeding] might have a good reason. Er, was this addressed to me? Because, yeah.
• It wasn't addressed to anyone specifically. A lot of people are militant about breastfeeding and, apparently, willing to make snide remarks to women they see using formula.
• Well, I did it my whey.
• Pump up the volume!
• *peeks around coyly Is someone pumping their organ?
• *pulls out all stops*
• Shut it down! *faints*