by Ronald Gibson

Created on: October 22, 2008

First of all we should start by discusing what kind of magazines we are asking about. For instance while I am certain there would be a large market for it there should never be a picture of a baby on a porn magazine, breast feeding or otherwise, for obvious reasons. That being said we should recall the fact that there are many magazines devoted to the subject of breast feeding, what would we expect to see on the cover of those types of magazines, perhaps a monster truck smashing cars? That sarcasm was probably uncalled for but I just think it was kind of a bone headed question when you make it a general statement like that. In addition to the magazines specifically about breast feeding it would also be appropriate to occasionally put it on the cover of a parenting magazine and perhaps a few other subjects when tastefuly done. Also a magazine about a particular celebrity could feature that celebrity breast feeding her baby, such as hypothetically if Oprah had a baby and wanted her breast feeding picture on the cover of an issue of O magazine. With tabloids however pictures of celebrity's are often printed without their permission and are often distasteful. They should not show pictures of breastfeeding that were taken without permission, let alone published without permission. Such things should not be anywhere in the magazine let alone the cover.

The question really should be what types of breast feeding pictures are appropriate. I would not consider it appropriate to publish a picture a woman breast feeding in the nude although the act itself is totally appropriate in a private setting. Also the nipples should not be exposed in the picture. On the other hand if the picture is taken from the angle that allows the baby to cover most of the only breast exposed that is fine. The mother should attempt to make it appear to be a pleasant experience as it generally is. If the baby starts to cry while the picture is being taken then I feel they should avoid using that picture. Wait for the child to calme down and continue feeding peacefully then take another picture. The crying picture could be featured inside the magazine for an article about how to deal with a fussy baby who is having trouble breast feeding since that sort of thing happens sometimes but it shouldn't be on the cover. Also if the mother gets frustrated with the baby or anything else during the photo shoot than that should not be shown on the cover either. If she got upset because of comments being made by the camera crew it could appear that her mood is caused by the baby and this would be a false impression.

It is a beautiful expression of love between mother and baby which more mothers should engage in as it goes a long way towards establishing a loving relationship between mother and child and too many children wind up severely lacking in parental love from either parent. So yes by all means put pictures of it in public places, but by all means do it tastefully.

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