This product image released by Berjuan Toys shows The Breast Milk Baby doll. The breastfeeding doll, whose suckling sounds are prompted by sensors sewn into a halter top, has caught some flak after hitting the U.S. market. AP Photo/Berjuan Toys
This product image released by Berjuan Toys shows The Breast Milk Baby doll. The breastfeeding doll, whose suckling sounds are prompted by sensors sewn into a halter top, has caught some flak after hitting the U.S. market. AP Photo/Berjuan Toys
Six months I spent in hiding, trying not to make it obvious (and definitely not make it public) that I was feeding my baby daughter.
I'd pump in relative seclusion as people nearby usually did their best to avoid eye contact. I'd feed with blankets over me and my daughter.
In short, I made every effort to hide something that I didn't think was publicly appropriate.
Was I wrong? Because now, some company has created a breastfeeding doll whose suckling sounds are prompted by sensors sewn into a halter top at the nipples of little girls!
I have posted photos with this entry to prove that I'm not kidding.
"I just want the kids to be kids," the Associated Press quoted Bill O'Reilly as saying on his Fox News show when he learned of the Breast Milk Baby. "And this kind of stuff. We don't need this."
Dennis Lewis, is the U.S. representative for Berjuan Toys, a family-owned, 40-year-old doll maker in Spain that can't get the dolls onto mainstream shelves more than a year after introducing the line in this country, according to the AP.
"We've had a lot of support from lots of breastfeeding organizations, lots of mothers, lots of educators," said Lewis, in Orlando, Fla. "There also has been a lot of blowback from people who maybe haven't thought to think about really why the doll is there and what its purpose is. Usually they are people that either have problems with breastfeeding in general, or they see it as something sexual."
The dolls, eight in all with a variety of skin tones and facial features, look like many others, until children don the little top with petal appliques at the nipples, the AP reports. That's where the sensors are located, setting off the suckling noise when the doll's mouth makes contact. It also burps and cries, but those sounds don't require contact at the breast.
Is this a toy that I'd want my daughter to play with when she's old enough? Maybe not, but there's worse toys out there than a breastfeeding doll.
Thoughts?
--Althea Peterson
