By Glenni Lorick, IBCLC
I've heard one too many mothers say that they were victims of harassment while breastfeeding a hungry baby. Unfortunately we just do not have a breastfeeding culture in this country. Therefore, it is up to us to help educate the people we meet. Most mothers really never have an issue with anyone making ugly comments, but just this week a mother was told by a department store associate to nurse in the ladies' lounge. While the mother was nursing her baby with a cover in the lounge, an older woman told her that she was disgusting and should have brought a bottle! THAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!!!!
To help combat this incredible cultural stupidity, I created a two-sided document that you can print and cut apart so that you have an immediate response to anybody who tries to harass you for breastfeeding. Just copy the two pictures below and insert into a document (landscape orientation), then scale to fill the page. The front side contains a copy of the Alabama law, and the back side gives a rundown of just a few of the benefits of breastfeeding for both mother and baby.
<3 Millennia after millennia, women have fed their children naturally, then suddenly around the time of the 1950's it became "shameful"! What the heck happened!??!
ReplyDeleteThat's a great question, Donna! Doctors and formula manufacturers began pushing formula as the modern healthy way to feed babies, and unfortunately society bought into it.
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