Parents Want Breastfeeding on 'Sesame Street'

By Ivana Kvesic, Christian Post Reporter Friday, January 13, 2012

A group of over 5,000 parents are fighting to bring breastfeeding back to the popular children’s show “Sesame Street.”

The group, known as Nursing in Public (NIP), is calling upon the widely acclaimed show to reincorporate healthy nursing techniques into the series.

Many concerned parents are responding to the call with over 5,600 having signed the online petition called “Bring Breastfeeding Back to Sesame Street” on the Care2 petition site.

Authors of the petition argue, “back in the 70s and 80s nursing was tastefully shown on the show, but now they have replaced their nursing videos with bottles.”

“If we normalize breastfeeding in our community, especially with our children, we can help raise a generation of breastfeeders, which will support our economy, make for healthier children and lessen the risk of breast cancer for many nursing mamas,” the petition added.

The group is not asking the show to remove bottle-feeding entirely, but is asking the series to show both methods of feeding babies to children as “normal.”

The new push for Sesame Street to bring back breastfeeding comes only weeks after mothers descended on retail stores across the country to stage a national “nurse in.”

The “nurse-in” was a show of support for Michelle Hickman, a Houston mother who claims to have been harassed by a Target store employee when she was feeding her 4-month-old infant son.

When she called Target’s corporate headquarters to complain about the harassment, the new mother was told that although women have a legal right to breastfeed in public that doesn’t mean “she should walk around the store flaunting it.”

Mothers across the country were outraged at the treatment of Hickman and thousands showed their support in nearly 100 Target stores in 35 states.