Bottle-feeding Weepu cut from ad

08 Feb 2012 07:37p.m.

Lorraine wrote:

This bottle feeding issue is so pathetic. Whether a baby is bottle or breast fed should be irrelevant. Baby needs to be fed regardless. What about those Mums who want to feed baby themselves and are not able to......therefore the bottle comes into play. They certainly shouldn't be condemned for this. I bottle fed 2 of my children and the other 2 were breastfed. They all were healthy and made their milestones. All 4 are now strong and healthy adults. So to those who criticise and condemn Mums who feed their babies either way, get over yourselves and get a life and leave them alone.

07 Feb 2012 11:43a.m.

Richard wrote:

My wife cannot breatfeed for medical reasons. She does not need the breasfeeding lobby treating her like she is less of a woman because of this. would they rather we let our daughter starve to death. Try using your brains before opening your mouths. The attack on this add simply seems anti-Dad.

07 Feb 2012 07:52a.m.

Clive Williams wrote:

we need to tell life as it is, not censor out the truth. All Black Piri in the interview regarding the ad had full justification for bottle feeding his daughter. The mother of my first child could only breast feed for 2 week after the birth, when she consulted her Specialist he confirmed this was due to gynological problems. I find the attitude of La Leache and similar groups narrow minded and lack compasion.

06 Feb 2012 08:41p.m.

Suze wrote:

If we were to have any health ad (e.g. for breastfeeding, cervical screening, breast screening....) and there was 2 seconds of someone smoking in it, the ad would be canned. Breastfeeding is a health initiative any many groups, particlularly Maori, are not breastfeeding-why not I just don't know, but anything to detract from getting the message across needs to be removed.

06 Feb 2012 07:14p.m.

andrea wrote:

seriously? this is PC at its most RIDICULOUS! come on, these one eyed fanatics need to come down to earth and mingle with reality and realise there are bigger issues - i'm pretty sure smoking is a more significant life/death problem than bottle feeding...

06 Feb 2012 06:41p.m.

Shannon M wrote:

Good on you Piri!!! I am a strong believer in breast feeding but we as a nation need to calm down a bit ! If someone doesn't/ can't breast feed we need to leave it it's a personal choice! I think it's FANTASTIC that Piri was feeding his daughter infact more men should do the same!!!

06 Feb 2012 06:35p.m.

Dorks wrote:

First of all, he won't be able to breast feed;))) secondlyit's non of anybody's business anyway. People are great at judging others, but they should just keep their opinions. I am a mum of a 5 month old, bottle feeding as I did not have enough milk to feed. It took 3 weeks to find out that my baby is starving and crying for food. In the hospital midwifes and specialists said he was colic. Ridiculous... When we found out he was just hungry, I put him onto formula.He is healthy and great little man. Lots of people gave me hard time for it but I got over it as not of their business and I prefer my boy smiling and developing well. Good on him feeding and looking after his baby!

06 Feb 2012 06:30p.m.

Nicole wrote:

I was rapped a year and a half before i had my first child. it was a big thing with me and i talked to my midwife about no being able to breastfeed because of the damaged to them after being rapped and that i never let anyone near that area. The first thing she did when my child came out was rip my top up and but him on my chest. because of that i had a heard time to bond with him. i have heard the smart remarks in the supermarket that im a bad mum for bottle feeding. If they only new that that is what i want to do most despretly for my children. look at the wider picture everyone.

06 Feb 2012 12:18p.m.

Eddie Winslade wrote:

What a stupid, politically correct decision to bow to a bunch of narrow minded people and cut the bottle feeding segment out of the ad.Not everyone can successfully breastfeed their children, but to show Weepu in a tender moment with his kids was cool. The ad was about Weepu not about La Leche and they should have stayed out of the way.

06 Feb 2012 11:08a.m.

Philip wrote:

My mistake. Herald has a shortened version used for a comments page and a longer version which contains the story proper and the fact that the groups were consulted.

So my attack on journalism in this case is wrong, sorry Herald staff.

Shows that I'm not familiar with the Herald site style as I read Stuff for news.

All the e mail campaign nonsense still stemmed from the fact that groups were consulted in the first place. The e mail campaign smacks of insecurity about their position. I wonder how many e mails the HSC received from the La Leche campaign roughly? 'Significant feedback' is in the vicinity of....? Does your point of view become more 'right' or valid if more people are seen to support it?

The impression I and many others seem to get from La Leche is that they come across as overly zealous about the importance of breast milk, out of all proprotion with the actual difference in benefits derived from breast or formula milk. That's only on the strength of the e mail campaign and the content of one of them which asserts that five seconds of a man shown feeding a baby with a bottle will cause 'significant damage to breastfeeding in NZ' (paraphrased) admittedly. I'd need to meet these people to be better informed.

It's impossible to measure what effect the ad would've had on society, and any assertion is pure speculation. These people have no way of knowing and it's those kind of vaguely plausible, yet highly unlikely scenarios projected which make your average kiwi wince. NZ mothers are surely not so easily swayed, immediately copying what they see on televsion.

Personally I can't think of anything worse than to subject yourself to TV advertising in the first place. Turn sound off, change channel. If they're all synched, read a book in the break!!