Breastfeeding had an unlikely ally in "Sesame Street." The long-running educational TV show for children has a couple of decades of archives of "Sesame Street" characters and regulars talking about or showing breastfeeding in various "Sesame Street" episodes.
Yahoo! reports that these episodes commonly either had short clips or actual full segments showing breastfeeding mothers nursing their child. Among such moments was a clip of Buffy Sainte-Marie conversing with "Sesame Street" character Big Bird about breastfeeding her son Dakota "Cody" Starblanket Wolfchild. Sainte-Marie was a Sesame Street mainstay from 1976 to 1981.
"That's a funny way to feed a baby," Big Bird commented when he saw the singer gently rocking her baby while feeding him. "It's nice and warm and sweet and natural, and it's good for him ... and I get to hug him when I do it," Sainte-Marie explained. "You know, that's nice," Big Bird commented at the end of the clip.
Apparently, the idea for this clip came from Sainte-Marie, who also appeared in segments of the show that covered such topics as rivalry in the family - especially among siblings - as well as the culture of Native Americans. "Sesame Street" '80s favorite Maria, played by Sonia Manzano, had a similar clip of breastfeeding her daughter Gabriella while explaining breastfeeding to one of the kids in the show.
Sainte-Marie, who said in an earlier interview with CKOM that Sesame was genuinely child centered, spoke about the decision to include the breastfeeding clips in "Sesame Street." "At the time, breastfeeding was totally overwhelmed by the formula companies so that young mothers recovering from childbirth, they would have a big basket of formula," Sainte-Marie explained. "The doctors didn't understand how to teach them how to breastfeed."
In recent years, bottle feeding came to replace breastfeeding and this change has had "Sesame Street" parents clamoring to bring breastfeeding back into the show's episodes. According to The Huffington Post, a 2012 petition called "Bring Breastfeeding Back to Sesame Street" had as much as 7,000 signatures. The petition asked for a better balance between bottle feeding and breastfeeding.
"Back in the '70s and '80s nursing was tastefully shown on the show but now they have replaced their nursing videos with bottles," the petition said. "Please note... We are not asking Sesame Street to remove bottle feeding. We are asking that both ways of feeding babies be shown as normal."
