We’ve Come A Long Way Baby

by Amy Spangler
September 04, 2012

Corporate social responsibility (and breastfeeding moms) just got a boost courtesy of Proctor & Gamble’s (P&G) First Kid/Second Kid campaign. Designed to highlight the confidence that comes with experience, the campaign uses real life situations to illustrate the differences between first- and second-time parents.

“The whole campaign is a humorous take on how different parents can be with the first kid and then the second kid,” says Tricia Higgins, Communications Manager for Luvs.

“Breastfeeding” is among the series of campaign videos featuring first- and second-time parents (aka: novices and experts) tackling “normal” everyday tasks such as packing for an outing, changing a diaper in a public bathroom, taking a temperature, breastfeeding in public, and more.

Each 30-second video, part of a campaign to promote Luvs diapers, addresses a practical, everyday challenge with grace and humor—that breastfeeding in public is among those challenges is a credit to P&G and will go a long way toward normalizing breastfeeding. (You won’t find bottle-feeding among the videos.)

In 2004, 1-in-2 persons participating in an American Dietetic Association (ADA) survey stated that women should not breastfeed in public. And 7-in-10 believed that it was wrong to show a woman breastfeeding in television programs.

The American Broadcasting Company (ABC), in 2010, placed hidden cameras in a Brooklyn, New York cafe to see how customers would react to a breastfeeding mother being verbally harassed by the store manager. Female actors (using a lifelike doll for a baby) posed as breastfeeding moms; a male actor, portraying the verbally abusive store manager, told one mom to move to the bathroom and criticized another for “whipping out her hooters.” Viewers were then asked, “What would you do?” While the majority of customers defended the moms, there were some notable exceptions. One woman said, “I have two small kids and I wouldn’t do that out in public.” Her husband added, “It doesn’t offend me, but it definitely makes me uncomfortable.”

While the confidence of the second-time mom in P&G’s breastfeeding video is refreshing, the “you got a problem?” look from the older sibling is priceless.

We owe a big shout out to P&G and Luvs for increasing everyone’s comfort level with breastfeeding—anywhere, anytime, anyplace.