I got the same e-mail, and since I support what MomsRising.org is trying to do, I wrote to them about my concerns, just as I did about their use of a pacifier as the symbol for their 'Don't be pacified' campaign to legislators, encouraging them to continue to push for a public option as part of any health care reform legislation.  (OT note: I for one would be precluded from ever moving back to the US as long as such an option doesn't exist.  What good is my citizenship if I am risiking pauperization just to be able to have my blood pressure dealt with?)  I got a personal note back a day or two later on the pacifier comment, and it made me realize how ingrained such imagery is in modern industrialized cultures, because most people are so used to seeing them that they don't stop to think about what the image really means.

Here is some of what I wrote about the bottle picture:
"I liked all the pictures but the last one.  One big reason US babies land so far down in world health rankings is that so many of them are bottle-fed with breastmilk substitutes (because the US doesn't have serious maternity leave or workplace protection for lactating women!!!). ...
 
...I wrote a week or two ago about the pacifier logo.  This is along the same lines, but worse.  Children old enough to sit up and hold a bottle, don't need one (what's wrong with a cup?) and children who need to ingest food through a teat should be held on a loving caregiver's lap while they are eating, whether they are drinking milk straight from a breast or being fed by bottle.  The image of children alone, holding bottles, is more chilling than appealing to me and to anyone else who works with infant feeding.

Thanks for reading this!" and then I signed it, identifying myself as an ex-pat, a midwife and an IBCLC.

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