Monday, August 25, 2008

Kate Garraway faces outcry over provocative photoshoot which 'shows' her breastfeeding calf

Crouched next to a calf which she pretends to breast-feed, Kate Garraway presents an unsettling image.

The GMTV presenter posed for the provocative picture to promote a documentary on women who breast-feed other people's babies.
Kate Garraway

Kate Garraway has sparked controversy after posing for a provocative photo-shoot in which it appears she is breastfeeding a calf

'I'm on a journey to find people who believe milk has to be from the breast, people who buy it, sell it, people who give it away and people who even feed each other's babies,' said the 41-year-old.

'To many this might seem weird, but they challenge us that it's actually much weirder to give our babies cows' milk than it is to drink milk from another woman.'

For the programme, Miss Garraway met sisters who cross-feed their babies and surrogate mothers who produce two gallons a week for donation.

Kate Garraway

The TV presenter posed for the pictures to promote a documentary about women who breastfeed other people's babies

Kate Garraway

The mother-of-one said she wanted to make people stop and think about whether it's crazy to feed milk from another species

The presenter said she would not have wanted anyone else to feed her daughter, two.

'That bond was really emotionally important to me. I would never have been able to let someone else breast-feed her in a million years.'

But those who allowed others to breast-feed their children went some way to change her prejudices.

'I'd gone into the film thinking, "Why are they doing it? Is it because it's easier than breast-feeding themselves?".
Kate Garraway

Garraway dancing with Anton Du Beke on Strictly Come Dancing

They threw it back and said, "No, we're not doing it for convenience, we're doing it totally in the interests of the child, and we're prepared to sacrifice our ego of having that role"'.

If she could not breast-feed a second child she would buy human milk from a bank, she said.

Other People's Breast Milk, one in a series of female-led documentaries, will be broadcast on Channel 4 on September 9.
Kate Garraway

Bond: Garraway in the GMTV studios with her daughter Darcey in 2006

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