Ashley Graham gets real about her breastfeeding journey (and breaks a few stigmas too)

Ashley Graham has for almost a decade, been a public figure associated with disrupting the norm.

It feels discomforting to consider that it’s only in the past decade (really) that serious efforts have been concerted around body inclusivity. Or that having conversations previously deemed taboo are only recently taking centre stage in the mainstream. While there’s still a ton of work to do, we wouldn’t be anywhere at all without the people and women who’ve stood up against tradition and said “actually, I’m not sure I agree with this” in the public domain.

For many,  activists like Graham are inseparable from the rise in making this kind of dialogue not only normal but encouraged.

Graham was the first size 16 model to feature on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Vogue described her as 2016’s breakthrough model who “didn’t take no for an answer.”

More than her portfolio of work (which has extended from Michael Kors to Fendi) what really draws people to Graham is undoubtedly one beat beyond beauty – she stands (and walks) for something of substance. In an era where most people who have an Instagram account dedicated to themselves thinks they’re a model, Graham was one of the few top-tier stars in the industry who gave us something else to look at – ourselves and the beauty standards we’ve accepted.

Fast forward to 2022 and Graham still runs with her beat of important conversations that follow the eras of her life. In her motherhood chapters, she’s focused her gaze on the taboos around breastfeeding, and as always, related her topics to her personal journeys and struggles.

Graham who is a mother of three recently got real about her breastfeeding journey with her 8-month-old twins, Roman and Malachi.

Her latest campaign for Bobbie an organic infant formula company, has seen massive billboards grace big cities like New York featuring both her babies – one being breastfed and the other ready for a formula bottle – an ode to her finally finding balance, at peace with what other people might think about combo feeding.

Graham, who has shared previously that giving birth to her twins was no nod to ‘easy’ (blacking out, her husband praying and her being slapped back to the present) has never shied from her authentic voice when it comes to parenting, and ‘taboo topics’ of the all-important job, including breastfeeding concerns. She’s candid on her social media, and no different in her interviews, giving young moms a refreshing take: breastfeeding isn’t easy for everyone, and you don’t need to feel like a lesser parent if you need to rely on support like formula.

In an interview with Vogue Graham was asked to elaborate on her feeding journey. She highlighted that it was incredibly different to how she imagined it’d be before she was a mother, expressing that she thought (like many people do) that “you just jam in the boob and then they take to it,” and that there are physical issues that make it challenging she never thought about until they were her challenges.

Graham shared that in her case, she had a clogged duct which made breastfeeding “one of the most painful things [she] had ever been through.

On the stigma around breastfeeding vs formula feeding, as the campaign highlights, Graham discovered that combo feeding was her best bet, unashamedly. She also opts for simultaneous feeding, something many of her friends and fans have praised her for at “supermom” status.

The combo feeding concept spurred the conversation that many women feel pressured to breastfeed even when they physically can’t, and that formula feeding is associated with doing less.

In an interview with People, she shared:

“I joined forces with Bobbie to evolve in this conversation and shake the stigma around how we are feeding our babies. There’s no one way better than the other.”

She added that she had to soothe herself into getting into using formula and feeling okay about it, telling herself “don’t worry, you’re not failing as a parent.”

As per Vogue, Graham added “I also got, when I started wanting to implement formula with the twins…’Well, you’re still going to breastfeed, right?’ and ‘you’re not stopping, right?’ I just try to always go back to the old saying of what is better for your child.”

Graham also opened up about how medical advice pre-birth isn’t always what it needs to be.

“I couldn’t believe how much doctors were not telling women about their pregnancies. And it kind of pissed me off. So that’s why I talked about home birth and my experience with that and also breastfeeding and my experience with that. And then I had the twins and that was its own experience in itself.”

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Why is breastfeeding still taboo? Women share their thoughts on what needs to change

Feature Image: @ashleygraham/Instagram