Olivia Wilde’s Breast-feeding Photo Shoot

I almost glazed right over it because it seems all too commmon these days to see a headline about some Hollywood celebrity being photographed while breast-feeding. Olivia Wilde, 30, joins the list of celeb moms breast-feeding and photographed in the feature of her and her son in Glamour magazine’s September issue. Why is it just because a recognizable actress or performer has a baby and breast-feeds the baby it should become part of a fashion feature?

The magazine hit stands this week, during World Breastfeeding Week (Aug. 1-7). Don’t get me wrong, I applaud these moms for putting it out there, but I don’t like that breast-feeding is becoming glamourized and, well, sensationalized. It’s feeding your child. And in the case of the photo shoot with Wilde and her son Otis Sudeikis (dad is actor Jason Sudeikis), it’s like the baby became a prop in the photo shoot done in a diner where she’s wearing a Robert Cavalli dress and Prada shoes.

I appreciate Wilde, along with other celeb moms like Gwen Stefani, Gisele Bundchen and Miranda Kerr, is a proponent of breast-feeding, but I’m not down with the magazines making it a feature spread. I wholly support the right of a woman to breast-feed in public. To me it’s same as feeding a baby a bottle. But stop with the glamourous photo shoots. I dare say many moms of a 5-month-old (the age of Otis S.) are wearing stilletto sandals and sexy dresses, but are rather just trying to squeeze in a shower and a nap. These images of celebs looking coiffed and polished are an unfair representation of what new motherhood is really like.

We all like to see “pretty,” but beauty comes in many shapes and forms, as seen in the 4th Trimester Project.

And when it comes to breast-feeding, I appreciate the reminders from the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action of why breast-feeding support worldwide is so important. Breast-feeding can:
1. Help to eradicate wide-spread poverty and hunger.
2. Reduce child mortality.
3. Empower women throughout the world.
4. Combat HIV/AIDS and malaria.
5. Help ensure more environmental stability be reducing waste.