At a recent La Leche League meeting I attended, one of the leaders showed me this picture in a book she was reading called The Politics of Breastfeeding. I checked this book out of the library, but I must have gotten a different edition because this picture wasn't in it. However, with a little Google sleuthing, I found the image I was after.
This is a woman who had twins. I forget what country she is from, but it is a culture that favors boys over girls.
I'll spare my own opinions and thoughts and let you just take this image in for yourself.
I will say that I read that the little girl died just days after this picture was taken.
This is a woman who had twins. I forget what country she is from, but it is a culture that favors boys over girls.
I'll spare my own opinions and thoughts and let you just take this image in for yourself.
I will say that I read that the little girl died just days after this picture was taken.
My pro-breastfeeding comments aside, I would like to point out that the mom is not even touching the little girl. Her bottle is propped up by her own little arm.
A Mother's Love.
Something must have been going through this mother's mind to cause her to make this conscious choice.
I cannot, in my heart, assume that this mom did not love her daughter just as she loved her son.
Besides the obvious trauma this baby went through in her short life, how must this have impacted the mother?
I don't know...there are a million other things to say about this image, but I'll let you share your own thoughts if you'd like.
I have to say I'm very glad that photo didn't make another edition of whatever book that was, because it actually angers me if people were using that photo as a case for breast feeding over bottle feeding. There is SO much wrong with what that picture indicates that breast feeding vs bottle feeding is *way* at the bottom of the "what's wrong with this picture" list. Just IMHO.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I don't even think of this as a case for breastfeeding vs. bottle feeding, because there are clearly many other issues going on here. What gets me the most is how she's not even holding the baby. And, like I said, there are million other things to say. Not to mention, I wonder what is even in that bottle? Different countries, especially depending on when this picture was taken, did not have access to very many options of what to feed their baby, and they certainly did not have access to clean water to put in the bottle nor the sanitation we now have for cleaning the bottles between uses. The caption of the picture didn't indicate what that baby was eating, it only said that they were twins, one boy and one girl, and that the girl died shortly after.
ReplyDeleteOH! How sad - I wonder, too, if it wasn't a doctor who led her to bottle feed her daughter. Many MDs (state side anyway), will say a baby who is low birth weight must be bottle fed to make sure she's eating enough or because she is jaundiced, when really the opposite would be more effective. Heart breaking, but important to see.
ReplyDeleteTo add to what you are saying, I recently heard an adoption story about a girl in the Philippines whose birth mom gave her watered down milk in her bottle. It wasn't really the point of the story, but there was mention that the mom wasn't doing anything particularly or unusually cruel because access/ability to buy formula and filtered water was not possible for most.
ReplyDeleteWhen she arrived at the agency, she had to stay in the hospital for a variety of things including double pneumonia (at 2 months old). Praise God, she's now a vibrant toddler/preschooler with a loving family at TMC!