Due to other pressing commitments I haven't kept up with Lactnet the
past week, and FB is out of the question. I've only seen the cover in
a post on Facebook on my mobile phone, haven't read the article, and
so my comments are a reaction to the photo as I have seen it and after
having read most of the posts here. If it is showing a real-life
mother and her child brave enough to let themselves be on the cover of
TIME, I say, more power to her and the child. People, ESPECIALLY in
the US, need to see pictures like this almost as much as they need to
see live children breastfeeding at the mall, in parks, restaurants, at
day care, on the bus.  Ina May Gaskin wrote about the first 'Breast is
Best' video that 'if you are a North American, you need to see this
film' because she saw it as a way of combating nipplephobia. The same
goes for this cover, only it's attachmentophobia this time.  Who would
have thought we'd get help from TIME to raise this bar? How many
mothers and children will be able to be freer when out and about
because of this cover?
Long-term breastfeeding gets my vote as a good way to talk about it. I
also like the term 'sustainable breastfeeding' because it is a way of
framing a discussion of quality of care in the first two weeks
postpartum - sure, you can tick off on a form that the baby latched
before you sent the family home after birth, but that is not enough to
ensure sustainability.  (Though I must admit, after watching London
Twenty-twelve, where the head of sustainability for the Olympics is so
tragicomic, that word has become hard to use.) But 'sustainable'
doesn't say anything about how long the BF gets sustained, only that
it is robust and thriving and gives the possibility of a long-term
course.
Sarah Vaughan's post about other terms than long-term rings true for
me. Normal is a horrible word in this context, and is likely to
provoke a defensive response in anyone who didn't breastfeed as long
as whoever is calling some other duration 'normal'.

cheers
Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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