Breastfeeding mum and woman in a hijab emojis get the go ahead

Last month we reported on the news that a breastfeeding emoji could soon be in the pipeline. Well, yesterday it just got the go ahead along with 50 other new emojis which have been approved for release.

The Unicode Consortium, the bods that be who decide the fate of potential new emojis, met yesterday and approved 51 new emojis to make it onto our smart phones.

The shiny new emojis are based on proposals put forward to the consortium over the past year. As well as the breastfeeding emoji which was put forward by nurse Rachel Lee, other approved symbols also include a hijab emoji, a bearded person emoji and a man with a monocle emoji, you know for all those times when you need a man with a monocle to express your feelings.

Foods are also well represented with a coconut, broccoli, a sandwich and a cut of meat emoji, all making the cut.

Also included in the mix are nine new emoji faces, which should come in handy to help us better represent the way we feel about the events of 2016. They include a ‘face with hand covering face’, ‘a shocked face with exploding head’ and a ‘face with open mouth vomiting.’

While the release of any new emojis is cause for celebration, the breastfeeding emoji has garnered particular excitement not only because nursing mums will finally have a visual resprentation of the process, but also because it is hoped it might help reduce the stigma surrounding breastfeeding.

Unfortunately we’ll have to wait a while to see if the breastfeeding emoji will have an effect on normalising nursing as the earliest possible release for the new emoji family is summer 2017. In the mean time, it’s worth thinking what emojis the digital world is still missing. Surely a Donald Trump emoji can’t be far off?

See the full emoji proposal here

What emoji would you like to see added? Let us know @YahooStyleUK

There could soon be a breastfeeding mum emoji

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