Eye-popping breastfeeding gymnastics pic divides the internet

Public breastfeeding is always a hot topic, and now, a new and very public photo (shared on Instagram) has divided the internet.

New mum, Aussie Olympian Torah Bright, who is no stranger to sharing breastfeeding photos on social media, recently posted a photo of herself breastfeeding her 10-month-old son Flow while in a headstand.

The eye-popping snap has been criticised by some as “attention seeking”, but the young mum says the post was in celebration of motherhood.

Bright, who won a gold and silver medal for snowboarding at the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics respectively, posted the photo last week as she marked her first Mother’s Day. The post included a series of photos of her motherhood journey and was captioned with the message, “Becoming a mother has unleashed something inside of me.”

She went on to say, “It’s deeply spiritual. It’s primal. It’s raw. It’s fierce. It is pure. I am mother. My prayer for all mothers, now and in the future, is that they be heard. Honoured. Respected and encouraged to trust their intuition.”

While there were a number of photos in the post, there was one that garnered particular attention: a snap of the 34-year-old wearing just a pair of knickers, upside down in a headstand, while baby Flow breastfed.

As of Monday afternoon, the Instagram post had more than 200 comments, many of which were wishing the new mum a happy Mother’s Day, and praising her for her powerful words. “Your headstand nursing photo is EVERYTHING,” one user wrote.

 

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A post shared by Torah Bright (@torahbright)

However, a week after posting the pics, the Olympian added a story to her Instagram account saying she’d received many comments criticising her for posting the photo for “likes”.

One user commented, “I’m not saying it’s not beautiful. [But] breastfeeding is between a mum and a child. This is way too much. It’s not about handstands and seeing how that child could actually latch on for likes.” While another on Facebook wrote, “The photo of you upside down while breastfeeding is just stupid attention-seeking idiocy.”

The young mum re-posted the pic to her story with her comments overlayed. She added a joke disclaimer, writing “This is not a sustainable breastfeeding practise [sic]” before going to say she was not “looking for praise” and only wanted to celebrate joining the “sacred mothers’ club”.

Bright said she was saddened by the comments on a post she said was about celebrating motherhood, and called on all mothers to be eachother’s “cheerleaders”. “Reading some of these comments made me sad,” Bright wrote. “In my world, mothers should be eachother’s cheerleaders. (It’s hard enough.) Embrace our quirkiness and finding the joy in every shitty thing that is motherhood.

“We all do it differently. It is not wrong or right. Motherhood is pure. I only NOW consider myself a Wonder Woman because I have joined the sacred MOTHERS’ club with you. Nothing but respect to all mothers.

“I’m not looking for praise. I never need strangers’ praises. I walk this Earth to the beat of my own drum, led by my intuition and search for love and joy… obviously.”