Childcare activist Sheila Kitzinger has thrown her weight behind the campaign to have the baby returned to her mother. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian
Childcare experts are backing an international campaign to reunite a woman with her child after the infant was removed by Spanish authorities concerned about her "chaotic" breastfeeding patterns.
Madrid's social services department insisted there were more serious reasons for taking the 15-month-old girl into care, but an official report criticises the mother's habit of breastfeeding on demand and letting the child sleep in bed with her.
These criticisms have angered Spanish paediatricians and also prompted childcare activist Sheila Kitzinger and mothers' groups in Britain, the US and elsewhere to throw their weight behind the campaign to have the baby, known as Alma, returned to her mother.
Madrid's social services department insisted there were more serious reasons for taking the 15-month-old girl into care, but an official report criticises the mother's habit of breastfeeding on demand and letting the child sleep in bed with her.
"She uses breastfeeding as a pacifier and a toy , offering her breast any time the girl cries and letting her take it anywhere, no matter the time and context," says an edited version of the report produced by supporters of the 21-year-old mother, known as Habiba.
"This baby must be returned to her mother as a matter of urgency and should be able to suckle whenever she wants to," Kitzinger told one of the campaign groups petitioning for Alma's return.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/21/spanish-childcare-case-provokes-campaign?CMP=twt_gu
