Has stunning Myleene Klass finally let slip the secret behind her youthful looks? The 35-year-old singer revealed that her dad used to take his tea with breast milk – and that she has also had a drop or two.
And Myleene, who has two daughters aged five and two, told how she even made her family and friends sample her own milk, describing it as “sweet”.
She added: “Come on, it’s normal. I grew up knowing that he did that so it’s not weird to me. I sound like a happy-clappy hippy. We’re that kind of family.”
Here, mum-of-four Ulrika Jonsson argues why the milk should only be for babies’ mouths, while dad-of-one Martin Daubney admits he has had a taste...
Yes: Says Martin Daubney
YOU are not a real man until you have sampled your wife’s breast milk.
Like losing your virginity or crashing your first car, it is an essential rite of passage.
What’s wrong with drinking milk from the woman you love when you drink it from cows or goats you’ve never met?
It’s not a sick or sexy thing. It’s a curiosity — and definitely a bonding — thing.
When my wife Diana fell pregnant and I chatted with my dad about the topic, he admitted he’d “had a tug” on my mum — but then he had also toyed with the idea of frying and eating some of my afterbirth.
Well, I was born at home and the midwife gave the placenta to him. In the end he buried it in the garden instead.
I steamed in for a sip of Diana’s milk when my son was two days old. When Sonny was born, he was in intensive care and it was my job to ferry expressed milk down to him in a bottle, as the missus was unable to walk after a C-section.
I watched with utter fascination as the first drops emerged in the machine. We’d talked about this beforehand. Di was worried I’d find her repulsive afterwards but it was the most amazing experience.
I’d often joked I wanted to “sample the goods” myself, and when it came down to it, like standing on a cliff about to take a bungee jump, I knew I had to go through with it or I’d forever think of myself as less of a man.
In the hospital corridor, my curiosity got the better of me. I took a swig of the dense, yellowy lady milk.
It tasted sweet, nutty even, a bit like an unflavoured Yakult. When I saw Sonny suckle on the bottle, and I could still taste the milk, it gave me the most amazing sense of bonding with him.
When I told Diana, she thought it was a bit yucky but we agreed it made us closer.
Most lads from my birthing group admitted they tried it — sometimes by accident.
One got an unsuspecting squirt in his kisser during rumpty. Another was forced to sip his wife’s milk from a feeding bottle at airport security to prove it wasn’t explosive and admitted he quite liked it, too.
And a third developed quite a taste for it “as nature intended — straight from the pump”. It helped him sleep, and his wife joked it was like having two babies.
Another bloke regretted watching his wife express milk as he saw his wife’s boobs as “forever Junior’s” afterwards.
A neighbour jokingly offered me a bottle of his wife’s breast milk the other week when I went round for a beer.
I drew the line at that. Drinking another fella’s wife’s milk? That just lacks Klass.
No : Says Ulrika Jonsson
What might be an intimate confession for some is a publicity opportunity for others.
According to the all-sharing, all-giving Myleene, she not only used to let friends and extended family have a taste of her ivory nectar — but she’s also not the first in her family.
Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, it’s a family tradition as her dad used to take his tea with a drop or two of breast milk.
Forgive me while I barf, but that just doesn’t sound, feel or, I suspect, taste right.
Myleene claims that “it’s normal” but I beg to differ in the strongest possible terms.
Sure, it’s a bit of a laugh to smudge some on your hubby’s hand or squirt some in his face when he makes fun of your overinflated bazookas busting with milk.
But I couldn’t even imagine forcing my other half to taste a bit — let alone my friends or, worse, my father. It’s not just wrong — it’s wholly unnecessary.
God love Myleene. She’s a beautiful, intelligent and talented woman but a tad over-excited, methinks.
If she’s not skipping around in a bikini (every day of the week) or paragliding (in a bikini) with her daughter strapped to her, she’s promoting something or other — and in this case, I can only presume it’s the wonders of breast milk.
As a mother of four, I breastfed all of my children with varying degrees of success. The first one for ten months, the second for only a couple of weeks.
Breast is best, absolutely. When my daughter Bo was born with a serious heart defect and was being cared for in a paediatric intensive care unit, I sat like a hoofed animal with an electric pump attached to my breasts, expressing milk to be given to my daughter nasogastrically.
I ended up with a huge surplus of breast milk which I donated to the hospital for use on other sick and premature babies.
But unlike Myleene, I’m no “happy-clappy hippy” (her expression, not mine) and would seriously draw the line at sharing my breast milk with anyone over the age of 12 months.
Granted, Myleene’s newsflash is not as extreme as the tales of women frying their placenta and feeding it to their hubbies.
But nonetheless, while we all accept the virtues of breastfeeding and nutritional value of breast milk, declaring to the world that you make your family and friends try it is not only an embarrassment too far but just plain attention-seeking.
Unlikely as it is that I’d be invited around Myleene’s, I would have to decline a latte for fear of what might be in it.
The Carol Cooper View: The Sun Doctor
This sounds like a bit of a laugh. Many mums, and even more of their partners, have sampled breast milk as adults. Maybe they were curious to know more about the “breast is best” message. Did the magic elixir taste really special, and would it raise their IQ too?
Human breast milk doesn’t have the same ingredients as cow’s milk.
For one thing, it has different types of sugars, hence the sweet taste. It’s no surprise that it can taste a bit like Yakult, because it really is a culture of many different beneficial bacteria.
They feed off the oligosaccharide sugars in breast milk, and help a young baby fight off infection.
Breast milk also contains antibodies and even white blood cells. This makes breast milk a living thing that is teeming with immune cells to boost a baby’s immature defences.
The idea of sharing breast milk with other babies is not new.
At one time, so-called wet nursing was the norm in upper-class households, with women who could not or did not want to feed their child employing someone else to do so.
Will it do harm to share it with adults in the family? Probably none at all, but it’s a little odd.
Personally I’d much prefer a woman with milk to spare to distribute it among babies who are ill or premature. To find out more, visit the UK Association for Milk Banking at ukamb.org. # The Sun.co.uk
