When designers Lisa Ebbing and Angela Crosbie teamed up to launch their campaign to distribute attractive lingerie for pregnant and breastfeeding women, they were shocked by the negative reactions and accusations that their advertisements were comparable to “soft porn.”

The lingerie line dubbed Hot Milk teamed up with Breastmates, a website that markets to a network of 780 pregnant and breastfeeding women. When Breastmates began sending advertisements to their clientele about Hot Milk's new lingerie, the surprising complaints came pouring in.

Breastmate's website director Frances McInnes was shocked to realize that the objection was to the depiction of pregnant models. McInnes asks, “What is offensive about pregnant bodies?”

Ebbing developed the idea for Hot Milk when she realized that pregnant women were left with no option for attractive but practical maternity underwear.

She defends her line of lingerie as a means to support pregnant and breastfeeding women by empowering them and telling they are still attractive women in addition to now being mothers.

“Poor mums, at a stressful time in your life, all you can wear is horrible brown lingerie. It doesn't make you feel good. Our designs say to women, 'You can still be beautiful and sexy.'” says Ebbing.

The complaints have been taken to the Advertising Standards Authority but have thus far been deemed acceptable in showing women wearing lingerie as it is intended to advertise the lingerie. In this case, the product is intended for pregnant women so it is appropriate to show pregnant models.