There are a Lot of Gross Things in this World, But Breastmilk Isn’t One of Them
I made the mistake this weekend of reading an article by a flight attendant about ten gross things she’d witnessed on an airplane. I clicked over to the article because it had come up on my google news feed under the topic of “breastfeeding”. Wondering what she had to say about breastfeeding I read:
9. Breast Milk Drippage
A few passengers notified me of something leaking from the overhead bins down onto their heads. The look on the men’s faces was priceless when a woman stood up and said, “OMG….My breast milk! It’s not frozen anymore and it’s leaking what should I do?!”
Can we stop already with thinking of breast milk as gross? I would hope that people realize that without breast milk none of us, including, Ms. unprofessional flight attendant, would be here. How exactly does she think that babies are fed? Or is it that women are not to leave the house as breastfeeding mothers lest we somehow expose people to breast milk. I would also hope that people know that when they ingest cow’s milk that they are drinking a fluid that was recently inside an animal that likely spends most of its day standing around in her own feces. If any milk is gross, it’s not breast milk, that’s for sure. But why did the author include this example as one her “grossest things they have seen” – because it is breast milk. I don’t think it would have made her list had someone’s soda bottle or baby’s bottle of formula dripped down upon the other passengers.
I am a working, traveling breastfeeding mother and have pumped on and carried milk onto multiple domestic and international flights. I feel such empathy with that poor mother. When I have come home from a trip, cooler full of breast milk, I thought of that breast milk as the most valuable thing I was carrying. You know when you get the safety lecture about how if you must evacuate the airplane due to an emergency you should leave all your belongings behind? When listening to that lecture I always thought, “I’ll leave everything but the milk – that is coming with me!” Instead of bashing the mother who was only trying to do the best for her child, perhaps the flight attendant could have acted professionally and helped her – offering to store her milk in the galley refrigerator or providing her with ice to help keep it cold.
I am not asking anyone to drink breast milk or touch breast milk or even like the idea idea that breasts exist to make milk. But the idea that breast milk is “gross” is just ridiculous and needs to just stop.
January 28th, 2013 at 8:27 pm
What? Breasts weren’t designed for, well, nevermind. But I just cant wrap my head around breastmilk ice cream. Not because it’s gross, I just think it tastes weird. After having given up cow milk when Andrew couldn’t have it for a few months, that started to taste weird to me too. Breastmilk, anything biological dripping from the overhead compartment, that is sort of gross though.
stinky!
January 28th, 2013 at 11:08 pm
Not to mention that cow’s milk is their “breast milk” for their calves!!! We drink another species’ breast milk, cook with it, make cheese and butter with it, give it to our children…and nobody would think that (cow’s) milk is gross. Can you IMAGINE what people’s responses would be to seeing a child drink someone else’s breast milk (from a woman other than the biological mother)? People would FREAK OUT. Yet that is what we do every day when we drink cow’s (goat’s, sheep’s) milk.
I was once in a Mommy and Me group for breast feeding mothers and I asked a friend if I could have some extra (breast) milk for Cam because I would be away for 16 hours and didn’t think I could pump enough fresh milk (Cam was refusing frozen milk at the time). Her response was, “I drink regular coffee and I don’t drink (cow’s) milk.” A third mommy said, “Did I just hear you right? You’re going to borrow breast milk from Annie? Good to know we can do that.”
January 28th, 2013 at 11:09 pm
I have to say, as a mom who worked and had to pump, breast milk is liquid gold. That stuff is PRECIOUS. There should be a stock market index.
January 30th, 2013 at 6:39 am
I have to go ahead and say it – this would TOTALLY gross me out. My grandmother was obsessive compulsive when it came to germs and as I get older, I feel the same fears creeping in on me. I actually get made fun of at work quite often because I refuse to eat community food and request that everyone constantly wash their hands. With that said, I’m pretty sure that having someones breast milk drip on me would probably push me over the edge. Sitting on a germ filled airplane is hard enough as it is. I am not a fan of other peoples bodily fluids touching me. My super awesome husband has a habit of not covering his mouth when he sneezes in the car and many times when I watch his nasty sneeze particles floating in the air, I think about opening the car door and pushing him out. I know it’s not very nice but me and germs just don’t get along.
January 30th, 2013 at 3:44 pm
Gina I think your post may have inadvertently set us on a course to circle back to whether breastfeeding is, in some way, analogous to urinating.
Interestingly, urine is sterile and breastmilk is anti-bacterial and anti-microbial. And sticky. It sure is sticky.