Dianne Nikiforuk, RN, BScN, IBCLC, Drayton Valley, Alberta, Canada

January 29, 2012
Menlo Park

San Francisco, CA

Attention CEO Mark Zuckerberg

COO Sheryl Sandberg

I respectfully urge you to reconsider your position on posting photos of mothers’ breastfeeding children on their Facebook pages.

Nudity meant to titillate is rampant in our society on many levels in advertising, magazines, movies, television etc. Mothers feeding their infants/children is not and has never been one of those situations. Historically, women breastfeeding children in public was photographed and captured in other art forms as a matter of course. Only since the sexualization of the female breast in the mid twentieth century has this created a chasm between women’s roles as lovers and women’s roles as mothers. http://www.mothering.com/jenniferjames/

Refusing to post photos reinforces the stereotype of the female body as unacceptable and not to be honoured and respected for its amazing ability to provide life sustaining food and nurturing to every infant born regardless of gender, family economic situation, race, or parents educational level.

It is time to support mothers’ efforts to provide the nurturing and food only they were designed to provide. Governments around the world encourage exclusive breastfeeding for the firsts six months of life, introduction of complementary foods and continuing into the second year of life and beyond. The future of our world depends on it – health outcomes for mother and child, food security, and environmental impact.

Respectfully

Dianne Nikiforuk, RN, BScN, IBCLC Drayton Valley, Alberta