Thanks to the Breast Milk Baby, a new doll by Spanish company Berjuan Toys, young girls can learn how to nurse before developing breasts.
According to CBS New York, the doll is a bestselling item in Europe and on the company’s site, which says the toy “lets young girls express their love and affection in the most natural way possible, just like mommy!”
The $89 Breast Milk Baby comes with a shirt that has flowers positioned where the nipples would be on a fully developed woman. When the child wears the top and brings the doll up to the flowers, the doll makes sucking noises.
Ilina Ewen, a writer for Deep South Moms, told ABC News that the Berjuan Toys product left her speechless.
“I heard people talking about it but, honestly, I thought it was a joke,” said Ewen. “There are just things that I think kids are too little to understand. Let kids use their imagination and play with a doll and not deal with what it can do … There’s no need to turn it into something that’s anatomically correct. Not at this age.”
Psychologist Jay Reeve explained to ABC that the toy is less about the doll and more centered on the concept of breastfeeding. (First World Problems: The stolen stroller epidemic)
“[C]hildren have played ‘parent’ with dolls for centuries, but this new twist seems to focus not on what babies are like as much as jump-starting a focus on breast-feeding,” Reeve told ABC. “I’m always a little disturbed by toys, games, or products that have the impact of accelerating childhood identification with being a full-blown adult.”
Though the Breast Milk Baby may seem odd on the surface, Berjuan Toys spokesperson Dennis Lewis told the Washington Post Monday that reactions have been mostly positive.
“Once people sit down and think about it, there’s nothing controversial about it,” Lewis told WaPo.