Mum of four-year-old: "All my breastfeeding videos are treated like they are pornography."

Mother-of-one Ana Garcia is on a mission to desexualise breastfeeding. But it’s not entirely working out the way she planned.

Garcia, who lived in the UK before moving to Spain, is mum to four-year-old Matteo. Her YouTube channel, MamaGarciaVlog, has had more than 69 million views. The videos feature her talking about breastfeeding, and also show her breastfeeding her son in public.

“Caught breastfeeding in the streets!!” is the title of one. Other include: “Breastfeeding at the beach with my mum” and “Breastfeeding in church”.

From Garcia's video "Caught breastfeeding in the streets!!". Image via YouTube. 

In a video entitled "Porn ruined breastfeeding", Garcia explains that some people are taking what she does the wrong way.

"All my breastfeeding videos are treated like they are pornography and I have a problem with it," she tells her viewers. "Only 20 per cent of women watch my videos. The rest are all men. And I am asking you, please share my videos with other women you might know, because these videos were never intended for perverts, they were never intended for fake porn, they were intended for other women to change the attitude towards breastfeeding."

Garcia says she has had a lot of women thanking her for what she does on YouTube.

"But some men message asking me to do private videos and confusing my channel for porn - but my videos couldn't be further from porn because I show myself and my child. I want to desexualise the whole idea of breastfeeding and show what a wonderful thing it is between a mother and their child. No mum should miss out on this."

From "Breastfeeding in church". Image via YouTube.

Garcia, who has been uploading breastfeeding videos to YouTube for the past four years, says she started doing it to give herself confidence about breastfeeding Matteo in public. In her video "Four years breastfeeding!!!", she says she didn't plan to breastfeed Matteo for as long as she has.

"I do believe in a gentle weaning process that is led by your son or your daughter," she adds.

She says Matteo doesn't breastfeed as often as he used to - just first thing in the morning, sometimes before he falls asleep, and only occasionally outside of those times.

"If there’s something going on and he doesn't feel well, he is going to ask for 'moomi'. Sometimes he just feels it and he touches it and it’s good enough for him. Like, it's good to know it's there."

Garcia and her son Matteo, at age four. Image via YouTube. 

Garcia says sometimes, if she's out somewhere with Matteo and he gets upset about something, he will ask to breastfeed. She says she feels more self-conscious about breastfeeding in public now that he's four, but will sometimes do it anyway.

"Breastfeeding a four-year-old in public is weird, I think, in this society," she explains.

"I believe the more we show it the less weird it will become. It just needs to be shown, it needs to be seen."

She has a message for everyone who watches her videos.

"It is not your business to judge and it is definitely not your business to tell a woman when she should stop breastfeeding, because it’s just mean. So let us be."