A Pennsylvania mother who has sparked controversy with a picture of herself nursing her best friend's son alongside her own child says she's only doing what comes naturally.
"People are misinformed," Jessica Anne Colletti, 27, says. Now she is scolding her critics for trying to "sexualize" breastfeeding and make it look unnatural.
"People are misinformed," Jessica Anne Colletti, 27, says. Now she is scolding her critics for trying to "sexualize" breastfeeding and make it look unnatural.
"I think people have misinformation and fear. They think it's gross bodily fluid that shouldn't be shared or transferred in any way. And I can understand, if people are receiving donated breast milk, they want to have it tested, but if you know the mother directly and she's healthy, and you know everything about her, it's a perfectly healthy relationship to have," she says.The photo was posted last weekend on Mama Bean Unconditional Attachment, a pro-breastfeeding blog, in a nod to World Breastfeeding Week.
She has been babysitting 18-month-old Mateo for her best friend, Charlie Interrante, 24, since he was 5 months old. When Mateo gets hungry, Colletti doesn't hesitate to let him suckle on her breast – alongside her own 16-month-old son Lucian, if need be. The arrangement works so well that Interrante recently moved in with Colletti and her husband.
It originally started when Interrante began to fret about giving her son formula because he wasn't responding well to it and she's not able to pump breast milk at work. Colletti asked if it would be okay for her to breastfeed Mateo while she babysat him. "It was a natural progression to breastfeeding both of them," explains Colletti.
Colletti believes women should be allowed to breastfeed their own babies – and others' babies – openly and in public. However, she's aware many people do not hold those views. That's the reason she shared her breastfeeding photo, she says.
Colletti believes women should be allowed to breastfeed their own babies – and others' babies – openly and in public. However, she's aware many people do not hold those views. That's the reason she shared her breastfeeding photo, she says.
Not everyone agrees with what Colletti is doing. Among the 700 comments the photo has garnered on Facebook, many users said what she's doing is "sickening" or "wrong" or accused her of stealing Mateo's special bond with his mom.
Jessica Anne Colletti, her husband, Ben, and baby Lucian
JESSICA ANNE COLLETTI
Now, would you allow a friend to breastfeed your baby on your behalf???
Another way of introducing paid jobs or creation of employment and what would the real or actual mother be doing? If you abandon your primary duty to another person, ordinarily there wont be bonding at all but i sincerely object to open breastfeeding it is a disaster going some where to happen.
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