Posted on 09/09/2009 9:40:57 AM PDT by nickcarraway
When mom is away, most dads offer a crying newborn a bottle of milk, a pacifier, a pinkie finger. But a Swedish dad is embarking on an experiment that he hopes will allow him to soothe a baby with his own milk-filled breasts.
Ragnar Bengtsson, a 26-year-old student at Stockholm University, is regularly breaking out a breast pump to induce lactation. Bengtsson is the father of a 2-year-old child, but he has no plans to nurse his toddler. Rather he wants to breast-feed future children and inspire other dads to offer their breasts as a way to bond with their children at earlier stages of development.
"Anything that doesn't do any harm is worth trying out. And if it works it could prove very important for men's ability to get much closer to their children at an early stage," Bengtsson told The Local, an English newspaper in Sweden.
The story was major headline news in the Nordic country, and now it's making the rounds on all the parenting blogs. The story will probably continue to escalate as Bengtsson's efforts will be documented by Swedish TV8. Also, he maintains a blog on the station's Web site.
Ragnar Bengtsson, a 26-year-old student at Stockholm University, is regularly breaking out a breast pump to induce lactation. Bengtsson is the father of a 2-year-old child, but he has no plans to nurse his toddler. Rather he wants to breast-feed future children and inspire other dads to offer their breasts as a way to bond with their children at earlier stages of development.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
From a Swedish blog:
“Hope Ragnar falls and hits head, so he can reverse the damage done at the time his mother dropped him with a head first into the floor ....”
For some reason, I'm guessing Ragnar Bengtsson doesn't have much hair on his chest.
The comments at the site are actually conservative.
But this photo is not:
http://www.sfgate.com/blogs/images/sfgate/sfmoms/2009/09/08/21842.jpg
Pam Byrnes: I had no idea you could milk a cat!
Greg Focker: Oh, you can milk just about anything with nipples.
Jack Byrnes: [He reacts] I have nipples, Greg, could you milk me?
Uhh... I just... I’m really... honestly... speechless.
Wow... just... wow.
Parenting fail, biology fail... call it what you want. This is a gigantic Humanity FAIL.
Heather Has Two Mommies (Or One Mommie and ?)
Still no cure for cancer.
“Any bets that he also pees sitting down? This is some sick $hi+.”
You won’t get any bets from me. I worked in Sweden for a few weeks back in 2000, and the company I was at had 3 or 4 unisex batrhrooms (individual rooms) instead of larger Mens and Womens rest rooms.
They actually had a stick figure showing a guy peeing standing up (complete with dassed line for pee!) and a red circle and slash through it.
They expected guys to sit and pee, I guess since women use the same room, etc...
Does this mean the child will grow up to be a serial killer?
... and a Whatsit.
Yet another frigging Freak.
Well, I think he lost his right to a Father’s Day present.
Welllll...if I were this ‘SwedenMom’ there would NOT be a subsequent child. Evah...
EXACTLY!
This doesn't surprise me...Not at all. Nor would "Dutch Dad...", "Manhattan Dad...", "San Francisco Dad...", or "London Dad..."
Now, were I to read something like, "Texas Dad Tries to Breast-Feed", I would truly be shocked. Stuned even.
You just CAN’T make this stuff up!!
“Women breastfeed after they’ve been bathing in estrogen during a nine month pregnancy, so obviously it takes some time,” Werner, a professor of endocrinology at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, told The Local. “But if he works on it regularly he’ll likely notice a layer of tissue forming beneath the areola and it should be possible to produce enough of the hormone prolactin to cause lactation,” she said.”
Philosophically the whole idea sounds like an homogenization of gender; physiologically one could think this fellow might have less abstract motives at this fallow time.
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