12 April 2012

Breastfeeding Controversy for HITS FM #nlpoli

HITS FM morning crew  has stirred a bit of controversy for his remarks on April 11 about breastfeeding.

There’s an excellent account of it at Meeker on Media.  The HITS crew gained the ire of Tara Bradbury for his remarks about celebrity Mayim Bialik who is breastfed her son when he was aged three and a half years.

Bradbury commented , in part:

Beyond the surprise, I'm disappointed that Randy, being in a position of celebrity in this province, would help perpetuate a stigma that our Department of Health, hospitals, public health nurses and other health groups have been busting their butts for years trying to eradicate. 90% of Canadian moms choose to start breastfeeding their newborns; in this province, only 63% do. By the time these babies are six months old, only 10 per cent of them are still breastfed.

She’s right.  Breastfeeding rates in this province are appallingly low.

You can find the audio file on the HITS FM website.  That link came via Dara Squires’ blog where you’ll find even more on this controversy.

Scroll down a bit in her piece and you will find a link to a Canadian Public Health Association paper on breastfeeding in this province.  it dates from 2006 but the information is still pretty much the state of affairs today.

The provincial government still doesn’t have a breastfeeding policy.

Figuring out a policy really isn’t all that hard to do.  You have to wanna.

Breastfeeding:  it’s what your tits are for.

- srbp -