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12 hilariously relatable comics about life as a new mom.

Embarrassing stains on your T-shirt, sniffing someone's bum to check if they have pooped, the first time having sex post-giving birth — as a new mom, your life turns upside-down.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

Some good not so good moments with babies.



Embarrassing stains on your T-shirt, sniffing someone's bum to check if they have pooped, the first time having sex post-giving birth — as a new mom, your life turns upside-down.

Illustrator Ingebritt ter Veld and Corinne de Vries, who works for Hippe-Birth Cards, a webshop for birth announcements, had babies shortly after one another.

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Pop Culture

Buffy Sainte-Marie shares what led to her openly breastfeeding on 'Sesame Street' in 1977

The way she explained to Big Bird what she was doing is still an all-time great example.

"Sesame Street" taught kids about life in addition to letters and numbers.

In 1977, singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie did something revolutionary: She fed her baby on Sesame Street.

The Indigenous Canadian-Ameican singer-songwriter wasn't doing anything millions of other mothers hadn't done—she was simply feeding her baby. But the fact that she was breastfeeding him was significant since breastfeeding in the United States hit an all-time low in 1971 and was just starting to make a comeback. The fact that she did it openly on a children's television program was even more notable, since "What if children see?" has been a key pearl clutch for people who criticize breastfeeding in public.

But the most remarkable thing about the "Sesame Street" segment was the lovely interchange between Big Bird and Sainte-Marie when he asked her what she was doing.

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Family

How breastfeeding actually works is seriously awe-inspiring

Let's take a moment to marvel at this miraculous process.

A viral video shows what's happening beneath the surface when a baby breastfeeds.

Let me start by saying I don't care whether you breastfeed or not. Everyone's circumstances are different, no one needs to explain why they did or didn't breastfeed their babies and we'd all be better off with far fewer judgments across the baby-feeding spectrum.

With that disclaimer out of the way, can we at least all agree that breastfeeding is freaking awesome?

I mean, the whole biological process of growing an entire human practically from scratch is mind-blowing all by itself. But the fact that our bodies then create food to feed that human, with a whole system for how and when that food gets made and released, is just so cool.

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Family

Why some parents are cheering the new AAP breastfeeding recommendations

Hopefully, this new guidance will reduce judgment over breastfeeding toddlers.

Photos via Canva

The AAP has updated the minimum recommended age for breastfeeding.

When my mom was breastfeeding my brother in 1972, someone asked her, "Are you still going to breastfeed him when he's in college?!" He was less than 6 months old at the time.

A long history had led to the prevailing negative attitude toward breastfeeding at that time, much of it having to do with the marketing of infant formula in the decades before my brother was born. My mom ended up breastfeeding him for almost a year, which was fairly radical in the early 1970s.

In many ways, attitudes have reversed in the decades since then, with official breastfeeding recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics influencing the "norm" for length of breastfeeding. Up until last month, the AAP recommendation was to breastfeed exclusively for six months and then continue to breastfeed until a child is at least 1 year of age. But citing the "remarkable" benefits of breastfeeding, the AAP has now updated its guidance to recommend breastfeeding for at least two years, and then however long is mutually desired between mom and baby.

The news has been met with a mix of reactions, from praise for finally aligning the guidance with that of the World Health Organization to criticism for adding to the pressure many moms feel to breastfeed. With a formula shortage crisis putting extra stress on families, judgments over infant feeding choices have unfortunately proliferated.

Judgment over breastfeeding flows both ways, however. Some people judge moms for not breastfeeding and some people judge moms for breastfeeding beyond a certain age. Both are wrong, of course, but one good thing about this new recommendation is that it will hopefully make breastfeeding well into toddlerhood seem less "weird" or "gross" to those who aren't used to the idea.

All three of my kids breastfed past age 2, and it definitely raised more than a few eyebrows. I can't count how many times I've heard someone say that if a child is old enough to ask to breastfeed, they're too old to breastfeed. But that's totally arbitrary. Every breastfeeding baby communicates a desire to eat; they just do it with cries and body language instead of words.

As the AAP statement points out, "Mothers who decide to breastfeed beyond the first year need support. They often report feeling ridiculed or alienated in their choice and conceal their breastfeeding behavior to minimize unsolicited judgment and comments."

Everyone has a different threshold for how old they feel is "too old" to breastfeed (usually whatever age they are used to seeing), so what this updated guidance from the AAP does is establish a new "norm." That's welcome news for those who breastfeed longer than a year. It makes a difference to have an official entity not only endorse, but actively recommend, something society tends to react negatively to.

At the same time, many families face obstacles to breastfeeding for any amount of time. I was fortunate to not have to navigate breastfeeding and working full-time when I had babies, my mom was a lactation consultant who helped me get breastfeeding established, and my close friends and family were supportive. I had every structural and social support in place to make breastfeeding happen.

The AAP did add the caveat that there needs to be a lot more support for mothers to help more families be successful in whatever breastfeeding goals they may have.

"Not everyone can breastfeed or continue breastfeeding for as long as desired for various reasons, including workplace barriers. Families deserve nonjudgmental support, information and help to guide them in feeding their infant,” said lead author Joan Younger Meek, MD, MS, RD, FAAP, FABM, IBCLC.

While every family absolutely has to do what works for them, it is helpful to have recommendations from the experts and official acknowledgment that support is key for success, no matter how long a child breastfeeds.