– New rules on health care spending don't allow nursing women to get a tax break on breast pumps. [New York Times]

– Does Islam really subjugate women? The answer is more complex and varied than we’d like to admit. [bigthink.com]

– Oprah’s new TV network, the Oprah Winfrey Network, just announced its new logo: and it’s big, bright, and bold. [Jezebel]

–The FDA is reviewing the safety of drinks like Four Loco, which mix alcohol and caffeine. The two can be a dangerous combination because the caffeine masks the booze’s effects. [New York Times]

–The New York Public Library’s Schomberg Center in Harlem has acquired Maya Angelou’s trove of scholarship. [New York Magazine]

Tags: breast-feeding, Islam, Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey

There’s something profoundly icky about the breast-feeding baby doll, Bebe Glotón (the name translates to “Glutton Baby”), a Spanish creation that will be marketed internationally next year. But that ickiness has nothing to do with the idea of children holding up fake babies to their nonexistent breasts and pretending to feed them—a practice that no doubt has been going on since there have been mothers, babies, older children, and breasts. No, what’s gross about the Glutton (something tells me the marketing department is working on a different name for the U.S. market) has to do with the transformation of that age-old practice into an expensive and utterly pointless commodity.

Many of the responses to the recently circulated videos of the Glutton in action focus on the “inappropriateness” of such a toy and the fear that it will “sexualize” little girls prematurely, or encourage them to have babies earlier than they otherwise would. The disapproving responses, like Kathie Lee’s on the Today show, include speculation about the slippery slope toward anatomically correct boy and girl dolls that mimic the act that leads to babies in the first place. The counterargument in the doll’s favor holds that breast-feeding is not sexual but a natural act, something to be encouraged, etc. But both sides gloss over the creepiest thing about Bebe Glotón: the anatomically incorrect and thoroughly unnatural accessory she’s sold with. Before suckling her plastic progeny, the child-mom must don a “nursing halter top” with flower appliqués where the nipples should be, against which the doll makes slurping sounds, then cries until you burp her (watch the whole process, from halter-donning to impressively loud belch, in this demonstration video).

This bra-like garment, with its coy metaphorical areolae, strikes me as by far the most perverse feature of this product. Little children, both girls and boys, already come with built-in symbols at the spot where their nipples should be. THEY’RE CALLED NIPPLES. If your child wants to mimic the act of breast-feeding, a lifted shirt and a regular doll (or a stuffed lion, a wooden spoon, or whatever happens to be handy) will do the trick nicely. One of the great advantages of breast-feeding, often trumpeted by its champions, is that unlike bottle-feeding, it’s free (if you don’t count the opportunity cost of missed work time, etc.). Why pay 44 euros (around $55) so that your kid can pretend to save money—and pretend, against all evidence, that human milk is expressed through appliquéd daisies?

Though the Glutton is a European-made doll, her conceptual roots seem deeply American. There’s the bizarre confluence of prurience and Puritanism suggested by that halter top and the depressing assumption that, by buying devices that cost more money and make more noise, we’re somehow augmenting our children's imaginations. The lesson Bebé Glotón really teaches young girls is one that the baby-gear industry would be all too happy to have them internalize as they grow up: In order to bring up your kid right, you need to buy lots and lots of crap.

Image is a still taken from a promotional video of Bebé Glotón.

Tags: Bebé Glotón doll, breast-feeding, Glutton baby doll

Daniel Edwards—the celebrity-obsessed sculptor who has already blessed the world with Britney Spears giving birth on a bearskin rug and Suri Cruise’s bronzed poop—has just announced his latest work: A statue of Angelina Jolie, enthroned, majestically nude, and suckling a baby at each breast like it ain’t no thang. Weird? Sick? Magnificent? I can’t really tell.

According to the press release, the work—commissioned in honor of World Breastfeeding Week—was inspired by Jolie’s W cover from last November. Though Jolie’s two-handed pose looks awfully precarious to me, apparently she is demonstrating the " ‘football-hold,’ an accepted technique for breastfeeding two babies simultaneously.” Best tidbit:

In recognition of the global effort to encourage breastfeeding, one twin is depicted as being of African descent. Future castings of the statue will represent other world cultures through variations of the babies' patina coloring.

Edwards’ most recent paean to motherhood is the hot pink “String of Babies,” a limited-edition, flexible polyurethane rendition of Nadya Suleman as a baby-bedecked cephalopod.

Photograph of Daniel Edwards discussing his statue of Angelina Jolie courtesy of the sculptor.

Tags: Angelina Jolie, breast-feeding, daniel edwards, Octomom

Police arrested a North Dakota woman yesterday for breast-feeding while drunk, and now she is facing charges of child neglect. This case brings to the surface all of our weird notions about breast-feeding. The cops were called in for domestic disturbance and said the whole scene suggested child neglect. But hey, the mom must have told herself, at least I’m breast-feeding!

The advocates are incensed that the police invaded the privacy of a breast-feeding goddess and don’t worry too much about the potentially scary abusive household. And then the cops themselves seem uncomfortable with the idea that she was breast-feeding “as we are conducting an investigation, whether she was intoxicated or not.” Of course, the correct non-neglectful thing to do would have been to ask the baby to wait three hours, and then arrest the mother.

Photograph by Getty Images.

Tags: breastfeeding while drunk, drunk mom breastfeeds

Hanna, I was just catching up on your bloggingheads video when into my inbox popped new recommendations on breastfeeding and swine flu, urging doctors to advise women not to stop nursing even if they become infected with the H1N1 virus...

The argument, from a group called the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, is that

“the infant would likely have been exposed to the virus before the mother’s symptoms appeared. Continued breastfeeding may help limit the severity of respiratory symptoms in infants that become infected… Breastfeeding should also continue if an infant becomes ill with suspected H1N1 flu.”

In its full text, the group acknowledges that “information specific to this influenza is currently unavailable,” but runs with the suggestion that breastmilk is so powerful an elixir, it verges on a vaccine. It also assumes that this protection ought to trump concerns about infecting an asymptomatic child. But as you’ve shown, the evidence for milk as medicine is less than airtight.

Mostly, though, it’s hard to imagine a more perfect amalgam of anxieties – between breastfeeding and international pandemic. Hats off to the ABM for this odd mix of militancy and accidental parody.

Today's New York Times hosts a bloggingheads debate on breast-feeding between me and Dr. Ruth Lawrence, a researcher from from the University of Rochester and a major breast-feeding advocate. The occasion was my recent Atlantic story taking issue with the science behind some breast-feeding research. When bloggingheads found my opponent I swallowed hard. Dr. Lawrence is a longtime advocate of breast-feeding and wrote the textbook for physicians on the subject. She is also affiliated with the United States Breast-feeding Committee, which organized a letter-writing campaign that brought in nearly 1,000 complaint letters to the Atlantic about my story. I got out my sword, put on my shield, etc.

Of course it turned out she was a lovely person with a thing or two to teach my generation. I was going on and on, complaining about how hard it was for us Gen X mommies, with kids and work and gourmet dinners to cook. Then Dr. Lawrence let out a bit of personal information she said she normally doesn't reveal. She has nine children. She breast-fed them all, while working as a full time physician and researcher. So much for my "balance" issues.

Tags: breast-feeding

Today's New York Times hosts a bloggingheads debate on breast-feeding between me and Dr. Ruth Lawrence, a researcher from from the University of Rochester and a major breast-feeding advocate. The occasion was my recent Atlantic story taking issue with the science behind some breast-feeding research. When bloggingheads found my opponent I swallowed hard. Dr. Lawrence is a longtime advocate of breast-feeding and wrote the textbook for physicians on the subject. She is also affiliated with the United States Breast-feeding Committee, which organized a letter-writing campaign that brought in nearly 1,000 complaint letters to the Atlantic about my story. I got out my sword, put on my shield, etc.

Of course it turned out she was a lovely person with a thing or two to teach my generation. I was going on and on, complaining about how hard it was for us Gen X mommies, with kids and work and gourmet dinners to cook. Then Dr. Lawrence let out a bit of personal information she said she normally doesn't reveal. She has nine children. She breast-fed them all, while working as a full time physician and researcher. So much for my "balance" issues.

Tags: breast-feeding