In honor of World Breastfeeding Week, photographer, Lauren Carson of Drawing in Light Photography, shared her collection of beautiful images of mothers breastfeeding their children. One image in particular went viral as it displayed a mother breastfeeding her baby and also tube feeding her older children, who were born with eosinophilic gastrointestinal disease.
Mother of 6, Heather DeLisle, was contacted by a reporter at their local news station about being interviewed in her home regarding the photo and she agreed in an effort to raise awareness about the disease that was affecting her older children daily. When this breastfeeding segment aired on their station, entitled “Breastfeeding Photo Gets Lots of Attention,” is was accompanied by a large blurred, censored area covering the mother actually breastfeeding, and according to WCPO it was due to the regulations by the FCC.
I am honestly unsure about what think about a news station that contacts a mother who has appeared in viral content online representing specific causes that she was passionate about only to censor the very thing that was specified in the title of the segment!
Heather’s dear friend, April Wright, wrote the press release and really got the ball moving on the Facebook event, contacted me to spread the word about their “feed-in” event to protest about the censorship and I was able to get them on my morning video podcast. The WCPO Feed-In was attended by almost 100 people and according to Cincinnati.com, two dads had some very insightful words to share about the situation:
“I’m here for my kids,” said Steven Peck. “I don’t want to have my wife go into some bathroom to feed them. When she is nursing, I don’t see her breasts, I see my babies.” – Cincinnati.com
“Breasts weren’t made to be sexualized,” said Steve Symmes, who attended the protest with his wife and son. “They are there to feed your young. Society needs to see that it’s a normal thing. If he’s hungry, he needs to eat.” – Cincinnati.com
Families came out to show their support of this mother and their disdain for the news channel’s censorship of a baby’s THUMB – I guess they assumed it was Heather’s nipple!
Her daughter is clearly latched on in the photograph, grabbing the breast as if to to lift it out of her face. THE BLURRED AREA DOES NOT SHOW HER NIPPLE. The worst part is not that they blamed this censoring on FCC guidelines to avoid numerous fines, it’s that they STILL have not apologized for taking advantage of this breastfeeding mom in order to create “click bait” for their own followers.
This type of silent harassment of mothers in general is absolutely intolerable. You can follow this new group of Cincinnati families on a mission to #StopCensoringMotherhood on Facebook.
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Watch the LIVE broadcast below:
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