Breastfeeding Baby Doll Leads to Teen Pregnancy Say “Experts”

Yes of course I was going to blog about this. How could I not? Apparently our friends over in Spain have developed a breastfeeding doll that makes sucking noises when held up to a halter top with little flowers that represent nipples. The proximity to the flowers and the proper breastfeeding position activate a breastfeeding response in the doll.

Naturally this is creeping out people on our side of the pond for a number of reasons (none of which I understand). All I know is that anything that encourages the daughters of today (mothers of tomorrow) to hold a hungry baby to their chest rather than inserting a piece of silicone or latex in the baby’s mouth is a good thing.

I understand that children who are mimicking breastfeeding to begin with (because they observe a breastfeeding parent) will pretend to nurse their non-mechanical toys, stuffed animals and even live pets. They will do this without a halter top and without sucking noises coming from their dolls. This doll is totally unnecessary for a child that was brought up in a breastfeeding family in other words. They will probably appreciate the doll but they already know how the process works without props.

I also understand that children who observe bottle feeding parents will use all sorts of substitute bottles to “feed” their animals, dolls and toys and do not need a doll that comes with a bottle and makes sucking noises in order to feed their toys.

The point is that we finally have a doll that normalizes the best and most natural way to feed our young and the media is in an uproar about it. Apparently it is the “nipples” (aka flowers) on the halter top that are throwing everyone for a loop.

According to Dr. Nancy and her guest on the video shown at the bottom of this post, the halter top is “hypersexualizing” young girls. WHAT? How is it hypersexualizing anything? Would they prefer little girls actually lift their shirts and whip it out? (Because that is what all of us hypersexual breastfeeding mothers do, you know.)

Seriously though, aren’t the flowers a nice compromise for the puritanical hypersensitive people who are terrified of nursing mothers and want to keep us locked up in a dark room somewhere? Can you imagine the uproar if the doll manufacturer came up with a way to make the doll respond to real human nipples instead of the halter top flowers? I would love to see that reaction from Nancy and her cronies.

So if I am to understand the mainstream world correctly, Barbie and Bratz dolls are a perfectly legitimate doll but a doll that teaches a little girl the best way to feed a baby is hypersexual? Seriously? Who comes up with this stuff? So boobs are OK for little girls as long as they are stuffed inside a trampy package but if a nipple or (gasp) human milk is involved, then it is hypersexual and promotes teenage pregnancy. I got it.

How about Dr. Manny Alvarez of Fox News saying that the doll might

“speed up maternal urges in the little girls who play it….It’s like introducing sex education in first grade instead of seventh or eighth grade. Or, it could inadvertently lead little girls to become traumatised.”

Um…what? Traumatized? Sex education? Is this guy for real? Is he on Nestle’s payroll?

Does bottle feeding traumatize little girls? Does bottle feeding hypersexualize little girls? Doesn’t this whole controversy underscore our society’s anti-breastfeeding sentiment by saying that teaching little girls to feed their children the same way every other mammal on the planet feeds its young is “naughty and sexual” but inserting a piece of silicone or latex inside another person is not?

If we are going to make infant feeding analogous to sexual activity, then wouldn’t breastfeeding be like making love while bottle feeding would be like some kind aberration of natural sex such as sex with a rubber doll or a dildo? What would you rather teach your child is normal, healthy behavior?

Do I think dolls should mechanically breastfeed or bottle feed at all? Actually no I don’t. I think that dolls should not be mechanized at all. I think that how a doll eats, eliminates and is cared for should be up to the imagination and creativity of it’s child caregiver. I also think that 99% of mothers are physically capable of breastfeeding and that their babies deserve to be breastfed and that if there is any way they can work it into their lifestyle then they should breastfeed and that their example should be the one that children learn from, not from a mechanized doll but in the real world children are not learning about breastfeeding from their parents and if this is one way for them to learn the best way to feed babies, then why are people so quick to knock it?

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