Quotes about breastfeeding

Corben getting his Easter dinner before I sat down to eat.

Here is my collection of quotes about breastfeeding. Enjoy!


Corben getting his Easter dinner before I sat down to eat.


In modern consumer society, the attack on mother-child eroticism took its total form; breastfeeding was proscribed and the breasts reserved for the husband’s fetishistic delectation.  At the same time, babies were segregated, put into cold beds alone and not picked up if they cried.  ~Germaine Greer

There must be reasons why we men are so hipped on breasts as if we’d all been weaned too soon.  ~Gunter Grass

When an actress takes off her clothes onscreen but a nursing mother is told to leave, what message do we send about the roles of women?  In some ways we’re as committed to the old madonna-whore dichotomy as ever.  And the madonna stays home, feeding the baby behind the blinds, a vestige of those days when for a lady to venture out was a flagrant act of public exposure.  ~Anna Quindlen

Breastfeeding is a mother’s gift to herself, her baby and the earth.  ~Pamela K. Wiggins

While breastfeeding may not seem the right choice for every parent, it is the best choice for every baby.  ~Amy Spangler

The benefits to the mother of immediate breastfeeding are innumerable, not the least of which after the weariness of labor and birth is the emotional gratification, the feeling of strength, the composure, and the sense of fulfillment that comes with the handling and suckling of the baby.  ~Ashley Montague

Mothers ought to bring up and nurse their own children; for they bring them up with greater affection and with greater anxiety, as loving them from the heart, and so to speak, every inch of them.  ~Plutarch

Breastfeeding is an unsentimental metaphor for how love works, in a way.  You don’t decide how much and how deeply to love – you respond to the beloved, and give with joy exactly as much as they want.  ~Marni Jackson

Nursing does not diminish the beauty of a woman’s breasts; it enhances their charm by making them look lived in and happy.  ~Robert A. Heinlein

A newborn baby has only three demands.  They are warmth in the arms of its mother, food from her breasts, and security in the knowledge of her presence.  Breastfeeding satisfies all three.  ~Grantly Dick-Read

Who fed me from her gentle breast
And hushed me in her arms to rest,
And on my cheek sweet kisses prest?
My Mother.
~Anne Taylor

It is only in the act of nursing that a woman realizes her motherhood in visible and tangible fashion; it is a joy of every moment.  ~Honore de Balzac

Ah, the joy of suckling!  She lovingly watched the fishlike motions of the toothless mouth and she imagined that with her milk there flowed into her little son her deepest thoughts, concepts, and dreams.  ~Milan Kundera

There are three reasons for breast-feeding:  the milk is always at the right temperature; it comes in attractive containers; and the cat can’t get it.  ~Irena Chalmers

People need to understand that when they’re deciding between breastmilk and formula, they’re not deciding between Coke and Pepsi…. They’re choosing between a live, pure substance and a dead substance made with the cheapest oils available.  ~Chele Marmet

O, thou beautiful damsel, may the four oceans
Of the earth contribute the secretion of milk
In thy breasts for the purpose for improving
The bodily strength of the child
O, thou with the beautiful face, may the child
Reared on your milk, attain a long life, like
The gods made immortal with drinks of nectar
~Sushruta, translated

If a multinational company developed a product that was a nutritionally balanced and delicious food, a wonder drug that both prevented and treated disease, cost almost nothing to produce and could be delivered in quantities controlled by the consumers’ needs, the very announcement of their find would send their shares rocketing to the top of the stock market.  The scientists who developed the product would win prizes and the wealth and influence of everyone involved would increase dramatically.  Women have been producing such a miraculous substance, breastmilk, since the beginning of human existence.  ~Gabrielle Palmer

When we trust the makers of baby formula more than we do our own ability to nourish our babies, we lose a chance to claim an aspect of our power as women.  Thinking that baby formula is as good as breast milk is believing that thirty years of technology is superior to three million years of nature’s evolution.  Countless women have regained trust in their bodies through nursing their children, even if they weren’t sure at first that they could do it.  It is an act of female power, and I think of it as feminism in its purest form.  ~Christine Northrup

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