'Time' breast feeding cover stirs debate

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - The cover of Time Magazine is causing a stir.

At the forefront of the controversy is a mother and her child — mouth firmly planted on mom’s breast. It goes beyond the debate over whether mothers should be public with breast feeding. In the Time cover , the child breast feeding is 3 years old.

The story is about Dr. Williams Sears , who has written about parenthood and sold millions of books. The Time cover asks: Are you Mom Enough?

24-Hour News 8 showed the cover to WISH-TV Facebook fans, asking what they thought. Opinions varied.

Some people said the child is too old to be breast feeding, while others said Americans simply have the wrong perception on how old a child should be to breast feed.

The comments quickly piled up. Within less than an hour, dozens of viewers chimed in. Some said the choice should be up to the parent. Others worried what the exposure on the magazine’s cover would do for the boy later in life.

To chime in, visit the WISH-TV Facebook page .

24-Hour News 8 also spoke with Hoosiers about the cover Thursday.

The cover sparked a conversation that seems to be two-fold: Should the magazine picture breastfeeding in this way on the cover, and how old is too old?

Ali Kulenkamp and Sara Spalding are both members of the group Indy Breastfeeding Moms, a chapter of Breastfeeding USA. They're also breastfeeding counselors.

They say they were thrilled to see this pictured on the cover, if for no other reason than to raise awareness.

Both are in agreement that a mother should be able to breastfeed their children as long as they'd like. Spalding says she breastfed her children into preschool.

“This is actually a very normal thing. It’s a very ordinary thing for mothers and babies and older children to be doing, to be nursing until 2, 3, 4 years old,” said Spalding.

“The medical position is, if it’s working for you and it’s working for your child, you make the decision to do that,” said Cardarelli, an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, and the State Breastfeeding Coordinator with the Indiana Perinatal Network.

She says world-wide, many cultures breastfeed much longer than is culturally the "norm" in the United States.

But Cardarelli also adds it's images like the Time magazine cover that make it hard to do her job. She works to promote breastfeeding simply at birth.

“I think that when we go down that road, we sensationalize it, and put a picture on the cover, we're just creating negative attitudes about breastfeeding, and that's sad to me. That's really sad to me,” said Cardarelli.

She said what she would like to focus on is just helping moms start breastfeeding at day one.

Cardarelli said the recommendations for breastfeeding are that babies are breastfed exclusively through 6 months. From 6 months to 1 year, it’s recommended they have breast milk and infant food. After that, it's up to the mother and child to make a decision on when to stop.