Breast-feeding & Facebook

I thought this was so ludicrous, I just had to post it here. Hundreds of breast-feeding moms are in a frenzy and boycotting Facebook. Why? Because due to Facebook photo regulations, women cannot post picture of themselves breast-feeding that reveal too much. How cruel. I'd like for someone to come up with an intelligent reason why a woman would want to post a picture like that anyway?! It is a private thing- should be done away from people, and definitely not have pictures posted on the web.

As a side note, here is a bit of trivia that the average person may not know. A lot of people behind the breast-feeding craze (and I am not including the average normal mother in that) - the ones who do the billboards and commercials - they have an agenda. They are animal rights activists who don't want the milk of animals used, so they push breast-feeding. Anyway, that was just a side note. I am not knocking it, though our family doesn't do it, and it seems it would have its disadvantages, but to each her own!

"Mass online protest movement is gathering pace after Facebook banned some breastfeeding photos from the social-networking Web site.

Angry mothers even picketed the Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., in a live "nurse-in" to complain about a ban on photos of mothers suckling their children that exposed too much of the mother's breast.

Hundreds of women have had their pictures removed without warning and have been informed that they may be barred from using the site.

More than 80,000 people have joined a Facebook petition group called "Hey Facebook, Breast-Feeding is Not Obscene" with hundreds joining every hour.

More than 11,000 women from around the world took part in an online "nurse-in" protest on Saturday by posting more breastfeeding pictures. The protest's organizers reported that many have since had these photos removed from the site.

Facebook has said that it has no problem with breastfeeding but photos that showed nipples or areolas were indecent and had to be removed.

Barry Schnitt, a Facebook spokesman, said the Web site takes no action over most breast-feeding photos because they follow the site's terms of use.

"We agree that breast-feeding is natural and beautiful and we're very glad to know that it is so important to some mothers to share this experience with others on Facebook," said Schnitt.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,474044,00.html

There is comment that I got - that did not ofend me in the least, but after reading it, thought I would add this even though I put it in my comments:
I guess I should have been specific with the disadvantages: from being around breast-feeding women, I think there are a few. One being, if they want to leave the child with anyone for any extended amount of time, they have to use a pump and go through all that. Another, sometimes it isn't convenient to find a place to do it, and I think it is out of place for a woman to do it in public, even if she is covered. Another: I personally enjoyed feeding my nieces and nephews and know others in the family, even their fathers, enjoy doing that too. That can't happen when the mother breast-feeds, again unless she uses a pump all the time, and I can see how they want the bonding experience, but its nice for other family members to be able to have that too. Kids that are bottle fed can be fed anywhere, anytime, by anybody, which is pretty convenient.
I was in no means saying the kid is inferior, etc, if they are breast-fed. The disadvantages I refer to are for the sake of convenience. Those are the disadvantages I see, and even the women in my family have commented about the same, so it isn't just my opinion as a man, and I am in no means against women doing it. If I marry, I wouldn't want my wife to for these reasons outlined above, but to each their own. I don't have strong opinions about it like home schooling. I am not out to argue about bf, just stating the disadvantages, and not saying that makes bf bad. :-)

And something else I will add for the possible enjoyment of you who breast feed, a story told to me by a co-worker about a friend of hers: Seems the mother, a bf mother, went to town and left the baby with the father. It had just been fed, so she figured all would be well. Wrong. It fusssed so much, in desperation, the father figured he would try a unique way to quiet the kid: He lifted his shirt and let the kid latch on. Problem, the kid built up so much suction that he couldn't pry it loose, not having experience in that area, so he had to wait for Mom to come home and bail him out. And can you imagine the sight that met her? :-)