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Subject:
From:
Penny Piercy <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 20 Oct 1995 14:34:13 -0500
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I just wanted to put in my $.02 on this subject.  For all you advocates
out there, I think it's a political act to refer to the act as
"breastfeeding" rather than "breast-feeding" or "breast feeding."  The
latter two versions clearly try to make an equivalence with bottle
feeding, and to my way of thinking, stress the idea of feeding over the
idea of the breast.  For this reason, my own personal preference
terminologically speaking is "nursing," which in connotatation & etymology
suggests the act of nurturing as well as nourishing.  (I recognize
for cultural reasons, this term is not as universally applicable, e.g.
in England "nursing" means more exclusively to care for an ill person.)

As a scholar of medieval language and literature in a past phase of my
life, I can attest to the long and glorious history of the word that
takes the modern English form "to nurse"--and unlike "to breastfeed" it
is a word that describes both the action of mother and the action of
baby; a truer reflection of the reciprocal nature of the relationship
involved.


--Penny Piercy, LLLL, MOM (Patrick 2 1/2) from Bloomington, IN
(also B.A., M.A., and A.B.D. in English)

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