13 Comments
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Good Reason's avatar

I am so sorry about what they did to you, Ruth. The tide is turning . . . hang in there!

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Linda KG's avatar

Thank you Ruth Lewis for your detailed explanation. I was well supported by LLL Leaders when I was a young mother and I managed to breastfeed much longer than I expected thanks to LLL. I am very sorry to read what is happening now.

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Sheryl White's avatar

So sorry about what you and LLL have gone through. This madness is destroying LLL, and it must be heartbreaking for you all, and for the many who have been supported by LLL in the past.

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Ruth Lewis's avatar

Thank you for sharing my story – or at least this small part of it!

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Lucy Leader's avatar

The pleasure was all mine, Ruth. Unfortunately, if every former Leader wanted to tell her story via Lucy, I would not have to write much original material as so many more Leaders have, as you pointed out, just quietly left LLL, rather than succumb to policies that don't support mothers to breastfeed their babies.

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Susan Doherty's avatar

Well said ,Ruth. It's so sad to see LLLI destroying itself from within. Breastfeeding is for Mothers and babies only and it's absolutely shocking that this organization is betraying their clients by supporting the sexual fetishes of men ,endangering babies in the process. Keep speaking out .

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Go Lucy Go's avatar

Ruth, I was so moved to read your story. How can anyone reasonably expect that obscuring definitions can help clarify a message? The breastfeeding rates in the UK are so low! They are the lowest in Europe!! While the World Health Organization (2023) maintains that when mothers receive clear information regarding breastfeeding they make choices that optimize their baby's health -and this lowers infant mortality rates- it seems like a horrendous crime to me to muddle definitions and by doing so, preventing mothers from accessing clear information and support. What happened to you and your colleagues breaks my heart. You have been a warrior for health and for peace. My gratitude to you for speaking up. <3

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Eleanor Copp's avatar

I am with new mums 37.5 hours a week for many years . In my observation Dads are mainly self absorbed and unaware of the newborn and mums co dependant feeding relationship . They often forget their partner needs their support and focus on work and prefer to deny how significantly they are impacted by changes in the house and how intense caring for their baby makes the mother change her focus away from himself .

The idea men would commit to this is unrealistic and the proposal it should be tolerated distracting to a mother’s needs . Which is why women need women when feeding a baby .

Only a man who would be jealous of that switch of attention away from him would invoke such a harmful change to so many newborns and their mothers and yet women cannot see this . Psychotherapy to take responsibility for their vulnerability would be a correct response not damaging many women babies and professionals with years of knowledge and expertise .

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Lucy Leader's avatar

Yes, Eleanor to your observations. Even "nice" and "normal" men can find becoming a father challenging for the reasons you list. Men who demand a breastfeeding role are using babies as props for their own warped self-perception and groups such as LLL and the ABA are complicit in causing real, not imagined harms to babies and to their mothers.

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Eleanor Copp's avatar

Yes absolutely. I see the system undermining unborn babies needs constantly, the induction fervour and the keenness to get a baby out is never about the babies needs although it’s headlined as that to enable consent . And the latest intervention : hormonal contraception at birth which can alter milk supply .

If a baby is not seen as having a right to a normal birth ( even though in child protection cases the voice of the in unborn is a thing ) or breast milk i assume women will support men to feed and women who say they are men to feed . Both ways babies are denied a nourishing nurturing relationship.

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Ruth S.'s avatar

I truly hope that some new organization will arise from the ashes of LLL and hold true to the original purpose and philosophy of the LLL Founders.

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OpEd's avatar

FFS! How did we get here?

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Lucy Leader's avatar

By stealth, dishonesty and behind the scenes changes. Right out of the trans lobby's playbook. Because they know that honesty on their part is not acceptable to the general population who don't believe in their chaotic and destructive ideology.

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