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Grey's Anatomy-- BreastFeeding and Breast Cancer

October 20, 2006

Last night on Grey's Anatomy one of the story lines follows a young mom who has breast cancer and is going to have a mastectomy. She arrives in the hospital with her husband and baby in tow. The husband tells the doctors she's having a hard time, that she had to stop nursing and the baby won't take a bottle. Talking amongst themselves, one of the doctors says she probably thought the lump was a plugged milk duct.

Hurray to Grey's Anatomy for highlighting breast cancer during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This is television at it's finest! A subtle reminder to all women, even breastfeeding moms, to take any lump seriously.

I wrote an entry last week about a Seattle mom who first found a lump while breastfeeding her twins. She now runs an organization called Check Your Boobies, which promotes doing regular self breast exams. If you sign up, you can get a montly email reminder to do a check.

Grey's Anatomy has been noted before for promoting breastfeeding. One of the main characters, Dr. Bailey, is a new mom. Not only did we get to see her endure some wonderful (imagine sarcastic tone here) labor pains, but we also got to see her breastfeeding. I actually missed that episode, but ProMom.org (another breastfeeding website) encouraged people to write letters to the show commending the writers.

And who said the "boob tube" wasn't educational?!?!