Another Year, Another Reminder from the Pope That Breastfeeding Is OK

Jihan Forbes
·Associate Editor
The Pope is cool with public breastfeeding – when will the rest of the world follow suit? (Photo: Getty Images)
The pope is cool with public breastfeeding. When will the rest of the world follow suit? (Photo: Getty Images)

Public breastfeeding continues to be a hot-button issue in our society, and the celeb set has, of course, weighed in with their two cents on the issue, showing support for mothers who might feel shamed about making sure their babies are fed.

Gisele Bündchen, Jaime King, and Candice Swanepoel are just a few of the celebrities who have shared breastfeeding selfies on social media, standing up for the practice against an unyielding, outdated force of people who insist it’s sexual and inappropriate. But breastfeeding has had a longtime ally in perhaps an unexpected leader: Pope Francis.

At a ceremony in honor of the baptism of Jesus, the Pope spoke to an audience that included the families of 28 babies looking to baptize their little ones. During the ceremony, some of the children began to cry, as babies do. But Pope Francis remained unfazed and invited mothers to console their children appropriately if they were wailing because they were hungry. “If your children are crying because they are hungry,” the pope told the mothers present, “then go ahead and feed them, just as Mary breastfed Jesus.”

Pope Francis first made headlines with his pro-breastfeeding stance in 2013, when he spoke about the issue in an interview with Italian newspaper La Stampa. He encouraged it again in 2014 and 2015.

Maybe 2017 will be the year people take Pope Francis’s advice and let women publicly breastfeed in peace?


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