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Public Breastfeeding


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#21 Ms. B. Havin

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 12:49 PM

Let's not forget that it takes two to breastfeed: mother and baby. When the two are in synch, it's like a dance, a great performance, with no missteps, and so smooth you don't even notice it. When one or the other partner in the exercise is nervous or upset, the performance is off and things go off kilter.

What can make mothers and babies uncomfortable or nervous? Having breastfeeding be considered unusual or borderline objectionable is certainly a trigger.

Should that mean that mothers make breastfeeding into an activist issue? Yes and no. One hopes that at some point people get over it and it's not an activist issue any longer. If a mall really asked a breastfeeding mother to take her baby elsewhere, then that's like asking for it to become an activist issue.

I've nursed standing up, sitting down, and walking around in public parks, on the street, on benches, in malls, in hallways, in cars, at restaurants (yep), and at various gatherings. It was never an issue, perhaps because I had skilled partners. We (my babies and I) figured out what we liked early on, and after that we could do it wherever and whenever convenient. The latching on part can be (should be) quite discreet, and after that I challenge you to notice a thing.

By the way, I do think this is completely different than having things shoved in my face in commonly shared public space that I don't want shoved in my face (like unattractive skimpily clad bodies with muffin tops, man boobs, or FUPA -- or militant religious wear that goes in the opposite direction, for that matter). And for cryin' out loud, I've never ever thought of it in relation to public masturbation, either. That's just weird. I get it if you don't want narcissists shoving their lifestyle at you -- and that's fine. (Chances are you won't run into breastfeeding couples -- mothers and babies -- at fine dining establishments when you're out on a date, because moms are at home by then, knocked out from having worked all day being moms... If they're out, it's likely for a business dinner, and they'll go to the ladies room to pump out some milk for later, but babies will likely be at home.)

Breastfeeding in public doesn't have to be an exercise in narcissism or militant activism. But neither should it be some hidden activity that's not a normal part of mothering.

See also info on the La Leche League site.
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#22 Zimquats

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 01:23 PM

... By forcing mothers to nurse their children in seclusion you are making it difficult for them to go out in public at all.

I don't see the big deal if discretion is used.


^ Exactly. Children require breastmilk not just for food but also to stay hydrated. We might as well say that someone drinking a pop should take it outside.


I'm by no means saying that mothers with young children need to stay at home, but there are alternatives to public breast feeding. If you know you're going to be out for a bit, pump a bottle full. Feed it some formula. Again, I'm kidless (thank god) and will admit I don't know all the details, but I'm sure there are some ways around this.

And if I bring my own pop into a restaurant or store...ya, I'm likely going to be asked to leave.

I'm sure if all 'couples' had the tittie talants of Ms. B, it wouldn't be an issue because no one would even know it was going on. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Perhaps it is the actions of a few bad 'couples', but unless they give every mom a feeding license proving you have some discretionary abilities, I'm sticking to my guns and saying that I still don't think it's appropriate in public.

#23 KublaKhan

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 01:23 PM

I can't get behind this. Perhaps I'm alone in my thinking, or it could be due to the fact that I don't have (or want) kids, but I just really don't want to see this when I'm out.


So don't look. Problem solved.

It's far from the only thing I don't want to see; fat guys with no shirt, and couples making out as if they're performing for Showcase Television Without Borders Friday being another.


If you're equating fat guys with no shirts and couples making out blah blah Showcase-style (on Friday nights, no less), clearly the issue of your discomfort lies in your inability to separate pure function from subjective fantasy.

However, when I go out to have a nice dinner at a nice restaurant, I really shouldn't be forced to sit through a public breastfeeding any more than I would have to sit next to a fat guy with no shirt or the soft core **rn couple.


Do you see the word 'SEX' in beer ads?

Yes, breastfeed your children. It's your right. It sounds like the responsible thing to do as a parent. Yes, make out with your lover. Be with them. Ya, take your shirt off and tan those man-boobs.

Just do these things in the appropriate venue.


Appropriate venue being what...? (psst: I'm daring you to say it.)

The alternative is to feed your child...sorry, not YOUR child, per se...whatever comes on the menue. Processed foods, bottled water, plastic-coated this and that and delivered from a factory blah blah blah. Forget it.

Get over it. Stop looking at Britney videos, realize that those two things...um, breasts...have a function outside the context of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover (sales) and understand that your squeamishness is part of adolescent male sexual angst: you WANT the boobs, but you don't want to think of your own mommy when you do it.

#24 vandervalk

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 01:34 PM

I don't have a problem with breast-feeding in public but I can see a private place like a mall not wanting 200 people standing around at their entrance or converging in the middle causing issues for shoppers just wanting to shop. What's wrong with trying to do it in a public park outdoors?

But don't interfere with people just trying to get out and shop. It's hard enough to get in and out of a mall, let alone having this many people and their crying kids breastfeeding.

But in all honesty, they've just got more public exposure than they were hoping for. Standing around a mall or movie theatre wouldn't give them the..oh geez, ready for this... exposure they were hoping for. Having this splashed in the newspaper and forums gets people talking more.

Also being an ignorant 34 year old male with no children, I didn't realize there was an issue or problem in our society of woman and lack of breast feeding with their babies. I thought there was breast milk in a can etc...

I know there are more psychological reasons, or so they say, but I thought most moms did if they could anyway.

#25 Zimquats

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 01:51 PM

Hey Kublakhan,

First, let me say that your post was actually quite funny. However, dismissing my misgivings about public breast feeding by equating it back to being adolescent has one significant flaw.

The fact that you're right!!!

If every mommy out there pulling out her breasts looked like a sports illustrated model, I doubt you'd find me complaining. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with me wanting the boob of a breast feeding mom. Nothing!! Doesn't mean I have mommy issues either.

It has everything to do with showing some discretion in what people choose to do and where they do it. I'm not even saying it's wrong. I'm saying it's wrong for me. I make specific choices about the places i go to avoid children. Can't stand em. And if I have to go in to a toy store or walk past a playground, I go in fully prepared to accept whatever I see. Fine. But should I not be able to walk into a mall to buy a pair of sunglasses without getting 'shot' at (yes, this actually happened, perhaps fueling by bias). I'll never go into a maternity / womens clothing / perfume store and complain about public breastfeeding. In turn, please leave it out of my pubs (yup, seen it there too). bah...

#26 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 01:59 PM

I haven't had any luck googling this.

So am I to understand that because it's private property they can override legal rights?


The mall has restaurants. You can't bring in "outside food or drink". :D

Seriously, does it need to be a big production? Surely every new mother is in touch with her doctor, and he can tell her the deal rather than learning it in a shopping mall.

#27 Nparker

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 02:49 PM

My questions are as follows: If this event goes ahead will it really "suck" or will it be cancelled do to "lac" of interest?;)

#28 Baro

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 03:01 PM

Breast feeding can also be hilarious

#29 Caramia

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 03:17 PM

I really do see this issue as an issue of male domination over culture and public spaces. Usually, you won't find me in the feminist aisle, but this issue puts me there. The discomfort over a really natural and imo beautiful function of the mother child bond is in my eyes really sick.

First - the benefits of breastfeeding to mother and child, aside from reducing cancer rates in women, and providing emotional bonding - it's the natural antibiotics and nutrients from breastmilk that have been shown to protect infants from everything from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, to physical and mental illnesses, to obesity later in life.

This against some people's discomfort? How the hell can you justify that? How do you rate the life of a baby against a twinge of ewww? And really, it is the life of not one baby, but the health of all our children that we show ourselves willing to sacrifice when we participate in creating a culture where breastfeeding is not OK. Where it is equated with masturbation (a comparison that totally boggles me by the way) instead of equated with eating (and yes most restaurants are quite OK with you bringing food in for your baby, and in fact would be at a loss if you asked them to provide a bottle)

Propriety is a matter of culture. Breast feeding is a matter of biology.

The stigma against breastfeeding places the onus on the woman to find a way conceal breastfeeding her child - perhaps scuttling off to the unarguably groady environment of a public washroom or going outside into the elements or yeah, just staying at home. When it is time to breastfeed, it is time to breastfeed - the way it functions is that the child and mother become a symbiotic pair, and the woman's breast create milk when the baby needs it... wait too long and it actually causes pain, to both mother and infant. Yes, there are ways around it, but they are uncomfortable and cumbersome, and often mothers just choose to stay at home - or not to breastfeed at all. How unhealthy! Then we wonder why we have a culture of isolated, alienated and unhappy moms raising the next generation.

This stigma creates an aura of shame around an act that functions to nurture and protect. It is something beautiful that women are taught to be awkward and uncomfortable with. It is something natural and instinctive that women fumble with breast pumps and supplement with formulae and basically go through stupid amounts of unnecessary hassles with at a time when they are already stretched thin. Why? To protect you from having to maybe see some tit?

I'm trying to imagine a mall banning fat people from eating in public. Because really - who wants to see that? Yet we can be tolerant about this and not about nourishing a baby?

If anyone has walked past the Douglas side of the Bay Centre you've seen the larger than life montages of anorexic teenagers all but ****ing on the side of the building. This is decent and inoffensive, yet feeding your baby the best possible nourishment available is not?

Yep, it is private property. And they can ban anything they want - people over the age of 40, baseball caps, breastfeeding mothers, teenagers with makeup on, rainbow suspenders, men walking hand in hand, women unveiled. Whatever. But my dollar is also my vote for the society in which I live. The society in which I live supports nursing mothers, and motherhood as a whole. The society in which I live cares more about a baby's health than about standing up for whatever prudish sense of impropriety any of it's members are carrying around. And the Bay Centre just lost my dollar.

This is ONE thing that we can change about our society that can make a BIG difference to moms to kids, to families, to the future. It is really a small change if you think about all the things we've gotten used to seeing out of the closet - handicapped people, gay people, old people, pregnant people... all things that in some times and places were hidden away so as not to offend.

#30 KublaKhan

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 03:36 PM

^Ditto. BigTime™.

And I'm glad you mentioned the anorexic teenagers all but ****ing on the Bay etc. etc. I was going to mention the anorexic teenagers all but ****ing on some other building in my previous post, but I thought it might be too broad a stretch.

Glad to see I'm not alone in noticing these things.

Having been through the @daddy home thing, I can say that I've seen more breastfeeding women and infants in the last five years than most men will see over several lifetimes. It was simply the way the mothers around me fed their children. I envy their connection. The experience also reinforced the reality that breasts are intended to produce milk, and not uncomfortable sexual subtexts.

#31 gumgum

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 03:50 PM

I suspect that all of us that have spoken in almost repulsion for breastfeeding and speaking for the " there's a time and a place" argument would instantly change there minds if they've experienced how immediate the need a young baby hunger is. When it needs it, it NEEDS it.
No one should be forced to leave ANYWHERE because she is breastfeeding her child. It is healthy, natural; and to breastfeeding babies, it is necessary. Because most young breastfeeding babies cannot/ don't know how to use a bottle. The breast is not interchangeable with a bottle for more "appropriate" times. Young babies need it to SURVIVE. There is no other options once you've made to choice to breastfeed. It is their only source of nutrition and hydration.

People should just get over it. It shouldn't even be a point of discussion.

Honestly guys. It's just a nipple. A nipple. Think about it.


Still. I just don't see the point of a mass breastfest. They're not creating awareness so much as just pissing off the anti-public-breastfeeding people.

#32 Zimquats

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 04:00 PM

Don't get me wrong. I do respect your point of view. I've never said women should or shouldn't breastfeed. It's all a matter, to me anyway, of appropriateness. If there are pictures of anorexic kids having sex on Douglas Street...not appropriate. Lots of things we see aren't appropriate. The topic in this instance is public breastfeeding, which in my point of view isn't appropriate.

If I have to go out in public, I take the time to have a shower, comb my hair, put on some clean clothes etc etc. Why? Because that is appropriate...no one wants to smell a Zimquats that hasn't showered in a week. If a nursing mom has to go out in public, why can't she just fill a bottle?

I think I somewhat understand the nurturing bond a mother may have with breastfeeding her child. I can respect that they feel they should have a right to do so in public. That said, what about people who aren't mothers? Not just men either, I polled a few of my single women friends on the subject to see how offside I really am here. Apparently, they tend to agree with me. If you're not a parent, I think both men and women have a totally different view of this activity (Perhaps it is a male domination thing, but it isn't for me or my female friends).

It also seems apparent that I do not alone share this view, given the only venue these women could get to hold their activity was a closed movie theatre. Given this, and the strong views to the contrary held by so many people on this site, it seems to me that public centres should take the breastfeeding mother into a lot more consideration than they do. It would be so simple for malls to establish a nice, clean, area for this to happen in. Mothers wouldn't feel like they were being frowned upon, non parents like myself wouldn't feel as though we were being forced to watch something we'd rather not see. I bet the business would increase from both parties.

Or, I could just cave in, rent a doll and duct tape it to my man-boob. When in Rome....

#33 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 04:12 PM

It's vitally important to life to know how to change your colostomy bag if you have one. But I'm sure no one would be in favour of a public exhibition with over 100 participants.

#34 jklymak

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 04:16 PM

Or, I could just cave in, rent a doll and duct tape it to my man-boob. When in Rome....


So long as you don't do it in front of La Senza with baggy sweat pants, I think that should be fine...

#35 gumgum

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 06:08 PM

If a nursing mom has to go out in public, why can't she just fill a bottle?


As I mentioned before, it is virtually impossible in most cases. A baby raised by the breast cannot use a bottle because it is a completely different method of feeding. People think that sucking milk is sucking milk, and that is simply not the case. The nipple adapts to the pressure applied by the sucking, giving the precise amount needed depending. Not to mention shaping perfectly to the shape of the baby's mouth. I could go on.
Anyway, why should they? Sterilizing bottles is a pain in the ass. Not to mention the huge expense of these new non-toxic, plastic bottles. (Yes, the toxicity levels of bottles is a massive problem. ) And let's not get into pumping. It takes a long time. Time is something a new mother does not have. If she pumps at home and then takes her baby out somewhere, she has to then chill it somehow - keeping it chilled. Then when she gets there she has to find a way to warm it, (and no, not in a microwave). All the while dealing with a screaming baby.
And this all because some people or offended at the sight of a nipple.

But as I say, opinions would change immediately if you experienced this as a mom or a dad.

#36 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 06:16 PM

And let's not get into pumping. It takes a long time. Time is something a new mother does not have. If she pumps at home and then takes her baby out somewhere, she has to then chill it somehow - keeping it chilled.


I'm sure if the mothers advertised on usedvictoria or craigslist they could find volunteers to pump for them. And maybe even pay them a few bucks for the privilege.

#37 Caramia

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 08:12 PM

Sure... or people could just relax and realize that their health and wellbeing is not being jeopardized by the sight of a woman feeding her infant.

Or take a moment with your brain to reclassify the act of breast-feeding into the category of "eating" which is perfectly acceptable in public, and out of the category of "medical problem (ie: Changing the colostomy bag) "sexual activity" (ie: Masturbating in front of La Senza) or "toilet" (ie: taking a dump).
There. Decency issue solved.

#38 Ms. B. Havin

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 08:42 PM

^ Well said, Caramia.

I'm kinda flummoxed that this is still a topic of conversation. Over a dozen years have passed since I weaned my youngest kid, and it was well accepted then to nurse in public. We're having this conversation in 2008 in Victoria?

Meh. I put it down to biology. The "ooh gross" side isn't parenting, whereas someone like gumgum, parent of an infant/ young toddler, doesn't think twice about giving nursing on demand his stamp of approval.

(Incidentally, guys -- and I bet gumgum knows this: a less stressed-out, easy-going nursing mother makes for a much more loving spouse <ahem>. Those hormones -- ocytocin? -- that kick in with the let-down also work to make "just a little lovin'" an all-around event ...whether early in the morning or late at night or whenever...)

I predict that when some of the antis become parents (male or female), there'll be a change of heart for many of them. Not all, but many. And then eventually you'll say, "ok, been there, done that. Let's move on."

Oh, and @VHF, cute idea re. contracting out the duty, and yep, wet nurses were all the rage in pre-revolutionary France and in the middle ages, but nowadays most mothers prefer a personal relationship (i.e., their own) with their baby's milk, so ixnay to the craigslist idea. As for pumping generally: what gumgum said -- it's a hassle to mess with bottles when you've got the package on you all ready to go (boob), and also what he said re. the differences between breast nipple and bottle nipple.

It's just so much easier, simpler, less fussy and less fuss-budget-y to breastfeed than to stand in some stupid kitchen messing with bottles. Oh, and have you ever smelled formula (soy-based)? It smells like something you'd pour into an automobile, imo. Really gross, like some evil Dr. Kellogg's notion of "health drink": you know, along the lines of "it's healthy so it has to taste horrid." Breastmilk on the other hand actually tastes sweet.
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#39 martini

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 09:03 PM

I haven't had any luck googling this.


Is there any more information about this CBC incident? No one seems to know anything about it. :confused:

#40 martini

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Posted 28 July 2008 - 09:10 PM

Thank you to all who have so eloquently spoken to the defense of natural and public feeding.
I too am at such a loss as to why this is such an issue. I think there is something inherently off kilter about North American ideals.
I can't imagine this would raise an eyebrow in most other countries of the world.

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