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Subject:
From:
Norma Ritter <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 7 Aug 2006 20:49:47 -0400
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Nan Jolly wrote:
>Language is powerful, so it behooves us to carefully consider what the words
we use may mean in current cultures and circumstances.
When our local group was translating a leaflet many years ago, we really
thought about "breastfeeding" a lot.  I recall that for that leaflet, we
used a word that meant "feeding the baby yourself" implying using one's own
body. It seemed the best choice at the time, but now I think it could mean
feeding the baby a bottle oneself, in a culture where that is the norm.  So
it only works in context.<

When I was growing up in England, young mothers were often asked if
they were *feeding the baby themselves.* This was a (then) PC way of
asking if they were breastfeeding.
I wonder if this is one of the English phrases which made it over to
South Africa?
Is there a similar phrase in Australia or New Zealand? I think that
most English-speaking Canadians tend to use American phraseology - am
I correct?

An English friend of mine, who was then living in the USA, went home
to visit her family to show them her newborn baby. She had been
acclimatised to USA English and so was quite startled to hear her
mother in law ask to nurse the baby. In England, of course, to nurse a
baby is to rock and cuddle it.

I really like the current English way of referring to breastfeeding as
*feeding.* It makes it quite clear that this is simply how babies eat.
Period.
...umm.. make that *full stop!*

norma, the exp-pat Brit

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