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Celebrity Moms Feeding Frenzy: Alicia Silverstone, Beyoncé & More (Photos)

Hunger Games

Alicia Silverstone’s baby gets food from her mouth. From Beyoncé to Salma Hayek, more stars who deliver.

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Eating like a bird is one thing, but feeding like a penguin is quite another. This week, actress Alicia Silverstone grossed out the entire Internet when she posted a video of herself pre-chewing her son Bear Blu’s food and then spitting it into his mouth. “I just had a delicious breakfast of miso soup, collards and radish steamed and drizzled with flax oil, cast-iron mochi with nori wrapped outside, and some grated daikon. Yum!” Silverstone wrote on her blog. “I fed Bear the mochi and a tiny bit of veggies from the soup … from my mouth to his. It’s his favorite ... and mine.” While many cultures advocate pre-mastication, not all doctors believe the practice is healthy. “There are those who think that a mom chewing a baby’s food provides helpful enzymes from her mouth but it doesn’t seem like a hygienic practice,” Dr. Jennifer Landa told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column.

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When Us Weekly reported that Beyoncé was seen last month breastfeeding her baby daughter, Blue Ivy, in a New York restaurant, the act was seen as political. “I think Beyoncé has a huge impact on being able to renormalize breastfeeding and give women confidence to do the same,” Emma Kwasnica, a breastfeeding advocate, told ABC News. “Images of pop stars and celebrities giving their babies nourishment will never harm our cause.”

Fame Flynet
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In 2009, Salma Hayek broke several taboos at once when she breastfed another woman’s baby on camera while on a trip to Sierra Leone. Hayek’s mission was to raise awareness for a tetanus vaccination project, but when she encountered a starving baby—born on the exact same day as her own—she acted as a wet nurse because the child’s own mother could not produce milk. Hayek’s act was also intended to end a stigma in Africa that women who nurse can’t have sex. “So the husbands, of course, of these women are really encouraging them to stop [breast-feeding]," the actress explained, adding, “I thought about it, and I asked myself, Am I being disloyal to my child by giving her milk away? And I actually think my baby would be very proud to share her milk.”

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It’s usually a paparazzo who captures a celebrity breastfeeding, but when the November 2008 issue of W published photos of Angelina Jolie nursing, the photographer was none other than Brad Pitt. In the accompanying interview, Jolie also revealed that she never wanted to have biological children until she met Pitt. “I never felt that it was the right thing to do,” the actress revealed. “[But] I suppose I just looked at him and loved him and just felt open to [getting pregnant]. I suddenly wanted to. It's one of those things you can't explain. I'm with a man who's evolved enough to look at my body and see it as more beautiful, because of the journey it has taken and what it has created. He genuinely sees it that way. So I genuinely feel even sexier.'”

NC1
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During a 2010 edition of George Lopez Tonight, the TV host asked actress Julie Bowen how she stays so fit being the mother of three children under 3, including 1-year-old twins. “You know, I run a lot and breastfeeding helps,” the Modern Family star said matter of factly. “It’s like two little liposuction machines … They suck it right on out.” Then she demonstrated the “double football hold” technique she employs to nurse both boys at once. And just in case her description wasn’t clear enough, Bowen brought along a photo for show-and-tell. Though Bowen blushed as she discussed the image, Lopez kept things light. “Can I show you the classy one,” he said, pointing to of one of the babies. “His pinky’s out.”

Jason LaVeris, FilmMagic / Getty Images; Inset: Youtube
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While Lucy Lawless sang the national anthem at a 1997 hockey game, her left breast accidentally saluted the crowd. But five years later, the Xena star revealed part of her right breast to nurse her infant son, Judah, on a poster promoting World Breastfeeding Week. The tag line read: “Breastfeeding—my best role ever.”

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In 2007 readers of People were divided when the magazine published a photograph of Maggie Gyllenhaal breastfeeding her 8-month-old daughter, Ramona, at an outdoor café in New York. Some thought the image was beautiful, while others believed the actress should have covered up. So for those whose modesty was offended by the Nursing in Public (NIP) picture, People published an additional image of Gyllenhaal—spoon-feeding her daughter.

Newscom
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Back in 1997 Redbook made a daring cover decision when it published a photograph of Pierce Brosnan and his wife, Keely Shaye Smith, who was breastfeeding their infant son, Dylan Thomas. “They may be surprised to see that we were gutsy enough to do it,” editor in chief Kate White told USA Today about the image, which she described as “the most beautiful of them as a family unit. It wasn’t because she was breastfeeding that I picked it.” And just in case loyal readers might have been offended by the image, the magazine only used it for newsstand copies—they chose a non-breastfeeding photo for subscribers.

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Though Gwen Stefani once declared that breastfeeding gave her “super-human powers,” the singer had a more practical approach for doing it—“[it’s] just obviously really convenient with my lifestyle,” the No Doubt star told The Guardian in 2007. She added that her son Kingston was "a genius” on a flight from Los Angeles to London because of it. “He nursed then went to sleep. But he doesn’t sleep through the night.” Two years later, Stefani returned to the subject when she revealed to USA Today that she was sad about no longer nursing her second son, Zuma. “I didn’t want him to [quit], it felt like a total rejection,” she admitted. “It was really hormonal, and trying to stop in the middle of the tour was insane.”

Fame Flynet
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Not all celebrities feed their babies in public—sometimes it’s a lover. At Super Bowl XLV in 2011, a cameraman caught Cameron Diaz placing popcorn in her then-boyfriend Alex Rodriguez’s mouth. Fox’s announcer captured the moment perfectly: “I’m sure Alex is thrilled we just put the camera on him at that moment,” he quipped. A few months later, Diaz told David Letterman exactly why she finger-fed A-Rod. As the bucket of popcorn was emptying, Diaz explained, she saw Rodriguez reach for the last kernels. “Anybody who knows me does not put their hand in my food,” the actress warned. “And then I went, ‘You know what, I love you too much. I’m gonna give it to you. You deserve it.’ And it was the only piece of popcorn that I even put near his face! And they happened to have the camera on right when I did it.” Then Dave pulled out a huge bucket of Orville Redenbacher and got Diaz to provide her special delivery.

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