Beautiful breastfeeding PSA from Puerto Rico!

Breastfeeding public information broadcast from Puerto Rico, "Dar la teta es dar vida" ("To 'give the breast' (breastfeed) is to give life"):



I love how this shows moms nursing toddlers and older children, not just babies. So many women seem to have this idea that breastfeeding should end as soon as baby turns a year (or even less). This is a lovely way to show that the breastfeeding relationship can continue as long as both participants are enjoying it. If we can normalize toddler nursing, we've got it made!

Puerto Rico may be part of the U.S., but it's clearly a long way ahead of us when it comes to breastfeeding PSAs (although their breastfeeding rates are not very different, according to the scant statistics I could find.) I wonder what the reaction was there when it was broadcast?

The video was originally posted by the makers here here, and the notes at the right side of the screen give more information about the song, the production team, toddler nursing, and more. Unfortunately it's been flagged as "inappropriate" (puh-lease!) so you have to sign in to get to it. (I linked to a repost that has fortunately not been flagged, let's hope it stays that way.)

You want my mommy to feed me where?

Ha! This video says it all:



(H/t to Bellies and Babies.)

Reactions to the Spanish mattress commercial

I was curious about reactions in Spain to the homebirth mattress commercial (what a strange set of words to put together!), so when I came across a Spanish blog that was posting about it I asked. I also asked about how often it was shown. If you don't speak/read Spanish, the blog's author says in reply:

"The commercial is shown as frequently as others, and has created debate. You hardly see her naked body, because she's dressed in a pink shirt during the birth. It's a great social hypocrisy that permits the television and commercials to continually show images of bloody accidents, violence, torture, and explicit sex in all the commercials and that we're frightened by a natural birth and breasts with milk." [Warning: my Spanish is rusty so my translation may be imperfect, but this is the general idea.]

I agree about the hypocrisy! And while it's disappointing to know that this ad is controversial, it's not surprising. In fact, in the blog discussion comments there are plenty of people who feel it's too explicit, and others saying that at least it's prompting a discussion about natural birth in Spain. The fact that this commercial can be shown at all on Spanish television shows they're far, far ahead of us...

Home birth in a mattress commercial

Thanks (as usual!) to Jill at The Unnecesarean for the link to this unlikely-but-beautiful commercial for yes, mattresses. I'm curious how much this was aired in Spain. When even TV shows in the U.S. that warn you "CAUTION: Scenes of ACTUAL BIRTH will be shown" blur out vaginas, no commercial this explicit could ever, ever be aired here. I'm sure things are more chilled out in Spain, but I do wonder, how chilled out?

Anyway, watch this with a tissue handy. (It's funny, I don't usually cry when actually attending a birth. It's the touching music that gets me in these birth videos!)

Breastfeeding & social marketing

This week for my breastfeeding class, I'm hard at work on a social marketing project. My idea is to market to health care providers (in this case doctors) to encourage them to talk to their patients about breastfeeding. Despite good evidence that doctors' encouragement does make a difference, I think a lot of doctors don't know/believe it or don't know how to start the conversation. My goal is to give them a little evidence to nudge them forward, and the tools to do it (pocket cards with ideas for how to start the conversation).

The hardest part has been the required focus group - I wanted to focus group it with OB or family practice residents who do prenatal care, and one of my classmates is a family practice physician at a nearby university. She tried to help me think of ways I could snatch a tiny bit of the residents' time, but we came up empty. Apparently they don't even sit down to eat lunch because by then they're running behind. So I'm focus grouping it with med students, who have a more flexible schedule but not much hands-on practice experience. This just serves to illustrate another reason for not discussing breastfeeding: no time.

It is sad, though, to realize that no matter how hard I work on this project, I may never come up with a breastfeeding social marketing campaign as fantastic as this:



I forwarded it to a couple of friends who used to live in Thailand, and they assured me that this is very representative of Thai soap operas, although probably without the list of vitamins found in breastmilk.

Breastfeeding video

Quiz answers coming soon. But in the meantime:



Love it!
(via Bellies and Babies)