Teresa Pitman, lactation expert, author, "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding"

Open Letter to Facebook
January 30, 2012

Dear Facebook Management:

I’m the author of three published books on breastfeeding and hundreds of magazine articles. I was the Executive Director of La Leche League Canada for three years, and I’m a frequent speaker at parenting and lactation conferences. I’ve been helping mothers breastfeeding for more than three decades.

I know a lot about breastfeeding, and also about the barriers that make it difficult for so many women to succeed.

By removing, or allowing your employees to remove, photographs of breastfeeding, you are adding to those barriers.

Women are told by their doctors, midwives and other health care experts that breastfeeding is the most appropriate and healthiest way to feed a baby. We have stacks of research to show that this is true. Naturally, the majority of women do choose breastfeeding.

But when they share their joy and pride in giving their babies this wonderful gift by posting photos on Facebook, only to get a stern warning that the photos are “obscene,” they feel hurt. They feel embarrassed. They feel shamed. Their bottle-feeding friends who posted photos of babies enjoying their bottles didn’t get messages like that.

If the new mother was a little nervous about going out in public with her breastfeeding baby, now it’s worse. If Facebook thinks breastfeeding is obscene, what other reactions might she get?

And the young woman or teenage girl who doesn’t yet have children also learns an unintentional message: all over Facebook she can see photos of babies with bottles, but none of babies breastfeeding. The message? Bottle-feeding is normal, breastfeeding isn’t.

Breastfeeding is too important for the health of babies, mothers and ultimately the planet to be subject to the whim of insufficiently-trained employees. Please take whatever steps you need to ensure that breastfeeding photos are no longer removed, whether or not some skin or nipple is visible. The laws in both the US and Canada are quite clear that in a breastfeeding context, this is not obscene or inappropriate.

Thank you for supporting mothers and babies.

Teresa Pitman

Teresa Pitman has been writing about birth, breastfeeding and parenting for more than 25 years. She co-writes the popular "Steps and Stages" columns in Today's Parent, Canada's national parenting magazine, and has also written for many other magazines, including Mothering, Family Fun, Chatelaine, and More. She also has 14 published books. As a long-time La Leche League Leader, she was thrilled to be asked to co-write the 8th Edition of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding (published in 2010).

Teresa has been invited to speak at conferences across Canada and the US and as far away as New Zealand. She's the mother of four grown children and the grandmother of four and lives in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

Laurie Wheeler, RN, MN, IBCLC, New Albany, Mississippi

Open Letter to Facebook

1-30-2012

Dear Mr. Mark Zuckerberg

     I am a Facebook user and encourage you to allow photos of women and families sharing the joy of breastfeeding.  I also work in a Women's Center at a rural hospital in Mississippi. Women often need to and want to go to the internet for "how to" breastfeeding pictures and videos as well. Breastfeeding is the normal way for a baby to eat, and it's a normal and important part of mothering.   

I sincerely hope you will reverse your practice of censoring these pictures.

Laurie Wheeler RN MN IBCLC

New Albany Mississippi

Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine: Facebook Flack Regarding Breastfeeding Mothers

January 12, 2009

For immediate release 
Contact: Karla Shepard Rubinger, Executive Director, Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, (914) 740-2100, ext. 
2153, abm@bfmed.org

Facebook Flack Regarding Breastfeeding Mothers 

New Rochelle, NY, January 12, 2009—The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine
feels that the social networking website, Facebook, would be well advised to review
its policy banning photographs of breastfeeding mothers. Such a policy perpetuates
the notion that breastfeeding is an unseemly bodily function best kept from public
viewing, a misguided and antiquated concept that has no place in contemporary
society. It further perpetuates the idea that formula feeding is normative when
breastfeeding is, and should be considered, normative infant and young child
feeding. Health professionals widely acknowledge that breastfeeding is biologically
unique and appropriate for the mother and infant.

Throughout most of history, breastfeeding, whether performed in private or
otherwise, has been regarded as a natural and wholesome aspect of daily living. In
fact, some of the greatest works of Renaissance art dealt with the theme of the
Virgin Mary breastfeeding her infant son (the Madonna Lactans).

So important is breastfeeding for the well-being of infants, mothers, and society at
large that no less than forty four states have enacted legislation safeguarding the
right of a mother to breastfeed in public. The Surgeon General’s Blueprint for Action
on Breastfeeding encourages “images of breastfeeding as the normal way to feed
infants in most places women and their infants go.” Facebook should certainly be
considered one of those places.

The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (www.bfmed.org) is a worldwide
organization of physicians dedicated to the promotion, protection and support of
breastfeeding and human lactation through education, research, and advocacy. An
independent, self-sustaining, international physician organization and the only
organization of its kind, ABM’s mission is to unite members of various medical
specialties through physician education, expansion of knowledge in breastfeeding
science and human lactation, facilitation of optimal breastfeeding practices, and
encouragement of the exchange of information among organizations.

This e-mail was sent by:
The Mary Ann Liebert Companies
140 Huguenot Street, 3rd Floor
New Rochelle, NY 10801-5215, USA

Ruth Piatak, BA, MS, IBCLC La Leche League Leader WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counselor Tulsa, Oklahoma

Open Letter to Facebook
Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 3:49 PM


Dear Facebook,

I finally overcame my fear of social media in the past year, and have enjoyed being on Facebook for several months.  It has been a great blessing to keep in touch with colleagues, with old friends in places where I have lived before, and with my adult children and nieces and nephews who think of it as the NORMAL way to communicate in this era.  Facebook is also a great way to keep current on the concerns of the demographic I serve as a lactation professional -- childbearing women, who may spend many hours a week nurturing their children at the breast while communicating electronically using the free hand that doesn't have to hold a bottle.

Breastfeeding, like other kinds of healthy eating, is a SOCIAL activity and is properly found where people are networking socially.  It is important for the Facebook generation to understand through their NORMAL communication channels that breastfeeding is the NORMAL way to feed infants.  

Facebook has an important role in ensuring that visual portrayals of children being nurtured at the breast are allowed to be part of NORMAL social exchange.  I am confident that Facebook and its employees can devise a way to screen images that does not censor normal infant feeding.  The U. S. Surgeon General chose Breastfeeding Support as her Call to Action last year -- emblematic of the influence of social support on the activity that is the foundation of each new person's health.  Lack of breastfeeding causes great losses to Americans' health and the U. S. economy.  I urge Facebook to be part of the solution. 

Ruth Piatak, BA, MS, IBCLC

La Leche League Leader

WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counselor

Tulsa, Oklahoma

Tammy Scott, mom, Facebook user, and Facebook advertiser

Open Letter to Facebook
Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:35:05 -0500


I am a mom, facebook user, and facebook advertiser (I've held executive positions in advertising and marketing for some of the world's top brands, all of which advertised on facebook). I was appallled to find out this week that Facebook is discriminating against women who feature images of breastfeeding on their wall, and in some cases blocked their accounts. I saw several of the "problematic" (using your words) pictures, and assure you there was nothing innapropriate with them!

I am very interested in finding out why facebook thinks it's OK to discriminate against moms, when they are in fact some of your most active users? They also happen to be the ones responsible for about 80% of household purchases in most parts of the world, so as a past facebook advertiser, I certainly wouldn't want to be associated with a brand that offends them! Based on the number of posts, email chains, and other forms of viral communications in reaction to your recent actions, I am not alone being upset over this issue.

In many parts of the world it is illegal to discriminate against women who breastfeed in public. For example, the UK launched the Equality Act in 2010 (see info at:http://www.maternityaction.org.uk/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/breastfeedingpublicplace.pdf). Perhaps facebook staff need a little bit of sensitivity training on this issue?

I hope to hear back from you soon. I really don't think this will just go away quietly.

Tammy Scott
tammy_scott99@hotmail.com