Should women text while breastfeeding? Why not, say Hong Kong mothers angered by doctor’s put-down
- Australian doctor Harry Nespolon caused outrage when he said texting while breastfeeding risked damaging the mother/baby bond
- Hong Kong mothers say that asking for advice and staying connected is important and he is being judgmental
The pressure to be the perfect breastfeeding, yoga-practising, plastic-free mum has never been more intense. So when a male family doctor told an Australian newspaper that scrolling on your phone while breastfeeding may damage the bond between mother and baby, new mums in Hong Kong were incensed.
Anjali Muthanna, from Discovery Bay, was one mother who voiced her frustration online, when someone shared the story from the Courier Mail on a local Facebook group.
“There are too many people who feel they’re entitled to tell women what they should do with their bodies. There are also so many theories on how to raise children perfectly, but they aren’t all very practical. It puts a lot of pressure on new mums, and mums in general, and it seems that they’re getting fed up of it,” says Muthanna, who is breastfeeding her seven-month-old daughter Arya Shrinagesh.
The Courier Mail story featured a comment from Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Harry Nespolon who said the habit of using a smartphone while breastfeeding – known as brexting – may affect children’s development and relationships.
The article also referred to the Still Face experiment developed by Edward Tronick at the Harvard Medical School in 1975, which demonstrated how an infant relies on stimulation from their mother’s face and becomes withdrawn when met with a blank expression.
