"Local Woman Invents Breast-feeding Device":

For the article:
http://www.connpost.com/women/ci_8209438?source=email

From the product website:



"Cover-Me... The Best Nursing 
Essential for every Mom!

Imagine having the ability to discreetly nurse your baby in 
public without carrying around wrinkly and bulky nursing 
covers! ?



Imagine a tool that fits in your purse or even your pocket 
that converts your baby's blanket into a nursing cover! ?
Imagine no more! ?The Cover-Me is the nursing essential 
that all moms need."



I find these kinds of products troubling in and of themselves, but when
the implication is that "every" mother needs one it is even more
disturbing. What this website is implying is that her definition of
"discretion" is shared by all mothers and by society as a whole. If
the website talked about "some" moms feeling more
comfortable.....meeting the needs of "those" moms who might prefer to
nurse this way, etc, that that would be a very different message. 

In response to this message,
new mothers might feel less emboldened to feed their babies in public,
not more so, b/c they believe that to do so w/o "discretion" is
unacceptable. This movement towards "discretion" is a very subtle
undermining of the right of infants to be fed anywhere at any time.
This product is a response to cultural ideas about breastfeeding that
this particular mom and sadly, many others, have internalized. It is a
symptom of something very wrong with our culture, not an obvious
solution to an obvious problem. While "some" babies may be breastfed
b/c of a product like this, we will surely come no closer to
breastfeeding as a biological/cultural norm b/c of it.



Jennifer Tow, IBCLC

Intuitive Parenting Network,  LLC
CT, USA










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