Where's Mum? - or - Here's looking at you, kid!

Baby Milk Action produces a calendar with breastfeeding pictures from around the world on behalf of some of the groups belonging to the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN).

We are always on the look out for good-quality pictures, so contact us if you have any to offer.

Putting the calendar together is always a challenge because all the groups that will sell it to help raise funds for their activities to protect infant health have to be happy with the selection of pictures. There is a voting process that goes on to ensure that the views of each group are respected and everyone has mainly their favourite pictures, plus a few they just like a lot.

I have a vote myself and have always been a bit suspicious of disembodied pictures such as the one that appears in January, shown below.

I tended to mark such pictures down because, regardless of how much we are focused on infant feeding, women - and mothering - is about much more than offering a breast to a child, so where's Mum?

But someone who has breastfed and loves these pictures pointed out to me that these are not pictures of disembodied breasts (though such pictures exist), but a Mum's-eye-view of breastfeeding and that is why these pictures are so popular.

Which just goes to show, you have to be open to other perspectives!

What do you think?

You can see the rest of this year's selection of pictures at:

http://www.babymilkaction.org/shop/calendarlatest.html