Bravo, Selma!

When was the last time that you saw a movie or tv show where a mother was breast feeding her child, or that it was even implied? I'm a huge LOST fan, but why oh why could those writers not give Claire a little time to nurse Aaron? They were on an uninhabited (as far as they knew) island for goodness sake, how was she feeding that baby? Dharma baby formula? I think not, the hatch wasn't found till Aaron was at least a few weeks old. I waited and waited. When Aaron would cry he would just get passed to Charlie or Hurly. I wanted to scream, "just give him a boob!" It was very frustrating.


I just recently heard of the whole Selma Hayek uproar. She was in Sierra Leone promoting a tetanus vaccine campaign. While there she acted as a wet nurse and breast fed a starving newborn whose mother had no milk. She also chose to do this in front of ABC cameras. Some have reduced this to a mere "media stunt". She has shaken things up, gotten people talking, kicked the wet nurse taboo in the pants. I believe she displayed a very compassionate act and highlighted the importance and naturalness of breast feeding.


Hopefully one of these days our modern western society will feel a little less backward about such a primal and beautiful thing as the gift of a mother's milk to her child, or even to the child of another in need. Maybe someday mothers nursing their 10 week old babies in a Glendale Starbucks wont be asked to leave for fear of making patrons uncomfortable. And we won't have US talk show personalities comparing public breast feeding to public urination.

Until then, to Selma, lactavists everywhere, all mothers not afraid to nurse their babies in public, to fathers who support their wives, and to all those moms from the homeschool park that have nursed their babes well into their toddler years, I say BRAVO!