Morgan said
There might be high art on a museum wall somewhere, and if you  look, 
photographs in collections... but there were no images of breasts,  and 
breastfeeeding, in the marketplace. ....>Jut saying the word 'breast' was so 
taboo that La Leche League had to  find a code in order to discuss and 
promote their meetings.  In this  vacuum, the icon of the baby's bottle 
flourished - to mean babies and  babyhood.

Maybe you Americans  might  be able to  help me with perception here.
I've a book called something like  'iconic photographs' , well, it's about 
iconic photographs anyway.  One of them is the   photo of the migrant 
mother, Florence Thompson nursing her  baby in a roadside shelter.    There 
were others of her, but   this one seems to be the most famous.  Does anyone 
know when it  became  so famous?    Was it in the 50s or 60s  , or was it 
earlier.  Or even later,   Just wondering where this  image of poverty and 
breastfeeding  fits in.  I have a memory of an Irish mother in Anne Oakley's 
Becoming a mother published in the 1970s [which I  have probably lent to 
someone and not got back, shame  as it is  a very useful book] talking about 
her mother back in Ireland, using a Guinness bottle   with a teat for a 
feeding bottle.  Had there been an image of that sort of bottle-feeding, 
that might have   become a sort of  counter icon too.  Or perhaps  it 
wouldn't have been a good idea, because 'Guinness is good for you', and that 
would have given a further layer of meaning [advertising slogan 1930s, by 
Dorothy L Sayers. which has passed into the national unconsciousness. ] 
Haven't we got to be very careful

Helen
LLL in England
>
>
> It might be useful to put my media hat on for a moment, and point out
> that pictures have a great deal of meaning in culture.  A picture that
> is specifically designed to carry meaning in advertising and promotion,
> has a huge heritage and history behind it.  None of us can come across
> such an image, an icon, without reacting subconciously to its 'load'.
> But we also have personal history, and that personal history can
> overcome the cultural load, and we can overlay it without own immediate
> meaning.  Hence, one picture can mean many things to many people, but
> always have some sense of a 'commoness of understanding' about it.
>
> The picture of a baby's bottle, especially the 50s type of upright round
> plastic container, tapered to an upright rubber teat, has had huge
> amounts of energy and money and time spent on it.  It was set up to
> illustrate all that was good about 1950s cultural conception of what
> babyhood, and motherhood, should be, through the lens of those who made
> profit from selling to mothers.  It was clean, sterile, washable,
> convenient, full of natural goodness.  It was the perfect delvery system
> for artificial milk, and it was set up with endless images of rosy
> cheeked bundles of smiles and lovingness.  It was the mother's best
> friend, her liberator and her ally in her struggle to raise an healthy
> and efficient child.
>
> I'd say it replaced the breast in images, but of course, that's not
> true.  There were no common day images of breastfeeding for it to
> replace.  There might be high art on a museum wall somewhere, and if you
> look, photographs in collections... but there were no images of breasts,
> and breastfeeeding, in the marketplace.  In common, everyday occurence.
> Jut saying the word 'breast' was so taboo that La Leche League had to
> find a code in order to discuss and promote their meetings.  In this
> vacuum, the icon of the baby's bottle flourished - to mean babies and
> babyhood.  A delivery system for artificial food that came to mean all
> that was wholesome about babies.
>
> Some of us still see the bottle that way.  Some of us react violently to
> it because that is what it means.  Some of us see it through personal
> history, and know that were it not for the bottle, many breastfeeding
> Mums wouldn't be sending their milk into day care.  Some of us still
> mistake the delivery system, for the artificial product, although this
> is no longer a useful way to see it, I'd argue.  Whilst we all know and
> understand what is meant by "the bottle brigade" - it's a meaningless
> distinction now, since so many mothers feed breastmilk via bottle.
> It's not the bottle, it's what is in it.
>
> Most of us go through this range of understandings and meanings when we
> look at a picture of a baby's bottle.  Nowadays, I can never look at a
> picture of a bottle, without seeing the starving baby superimposed into
> it, that was so effective in marshalling support aganst Nestle in the
> 1970s.  I have, therefore, an immediate gut reaction against the image
> of a bottle, especially in advertising.
>
> The point of the Code is to protect women from the iconic use of the
> baby's bottle, to banish it, and to reduce down the cultural meaning of
> wholesome goodness that it suggests.  To undo the decades of advertising
> pressure that has made this symbol such an icon.  But how to then also
> let mothers who need bottles know of them?  Why is Medela not playing
> ball in this.. and further, _how_ can Medela play ball, as any bottle
> image will bring this connotation of wholesome, artificial, goodness?
>
> To me, the answer is quite simple.  All they have to do is first of all
> uphold the image of the breast, and breastfeeding.  If you are talking
> about pumping and bottle feeding expressed breast milk - let your first
> and largest image be of a breastfeeding baby.  Make the iconic
> connection to the Madonna and Child first and foremost, and then make
> statements of supporting that bond by also supplying pumps and bottles.
> But place the breastfeeding mother and baby first.  Never advertise
> using images of bottles and teats.  Advertise with images of the baby
> feeding at the breast.   Only ever supply images of bottles, when you
> are actually listing them for purchase, and then be careful to undercut
> the iconic stereotype by also putting ii in direct context of
> breastfeeding: apicture f a mother breastfeeding at home, with her
> thinking of her baby at daycare, nurtured by her milk in a bottle.
>
> It appears to me that this is what Medela are not doing, and this is why
> what they are doing is so suspect.  Why it's such a code breaker.  It's
> not that they are showing an image of a bottle that they sell - it's
> that they have removed brestfeeding from the picture, and that leaves
> all the iconic meanings of such a bottle to stand uncontested.  They
> are, in fact, using the previous meaning of the wholesomeness of _the
> bottle_ to now mean the wholesomeness of their bottle containing
> _breastmilk_.    And, given the wording, I suspect this is a deliberate
> tactic in order to persuade women not to breastfeed, but to exclusively
> pump, with all the profit that this brings them.
>
> So, we have a retailer who has smelt the change in the wind, and is now
> aiming to persuade mothers that bottle feeding is still the clean,
> efficient and 'modern' answer to the problem of having babies.  Yes, we
> can say that pumping is needed to support women: pumps, bottles,
> sterilisers, freezer containers, warming machines.  But these products
> must be in order to _support breastfeeding_, not to replace it.  The
> Medela site does appear to be all about replacement.
>
> This is also ringing other bells, for we are used to seeing formula
> marketeers 'hijack' breastfeeding to support their own product.  Teats
> that mimic breastfeeding, formula that is almost as good as
> breastfeeding, dummies that are shaped lile the nipples etc.  Medela,
> and all pumping paraphenlaia companies have a difficult job here.  For
> on one hand, they have to make and sell a product that has as low an
> impact on breastfeeding itself as they possibly can, on the other they
> need to explain that clearly to mothers how their products will do their
> job, so they can make an informed choice.  Difficult, but not
> impossible.  A few images of wholesome breastfeeding, a small discussion
> of why not breastfeeding, only feeding expressed, raises health risks
> (lack of jaw development, increse in ear infections etc) but coupled
> with a reassurance that expressed milk at daycare protects against the
> risks associated with formula etc, and rounding off with a picture of
> the mother brestfeeding when she gets her baby back home for their
> "rebonding moment"... and you've fully supported the ethos of
> breastfeeding whilst managing to market your product without breaking 
> code.
>
> In short, if a company is doing what Medela is doing... NOT upholding
> breastfeeding as the desired norm, printing isolated images of 'the
> bottle', not discussing increase in health risks by only bottle
> feeding... its making the transition back to breastfeeding as the norm
> harder.  It's also breaking Code - and Medela need to feel the weight of
> that, as well as having positive support to change their practises.
>
> Morgan Gallagher
> 

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