Breastfeeding in America

[aelfie]

A lot of people have been thinking about it lately.

In the last month Newsweek has published 3 articles about it. Parenting Magazine did a photo montage following a nursing mom for the day. What gives?

People are getting pissed off. And its a good thing.

For the past 20 years or so OB/GYN's and Pedis have been shoving down our throats that "Breast is Best". Which is great! Until recently, numbers of first time mothers attempting to breastfeed is way up. (Last year the numbers went down) But there's a problem with their follow through. The numbers have at least halved by 6 months and are a small (but vocal!) minority at one year.

WHY?

As one of the articles in Newsweek pointed out America is screwed up in the head about it (my phrasing, not theirs) American's have this attitude of "Oh, yes, breastfeeding is best for the baby, but OH MY GOD did you see that woman expose her breast and is actually breastfeeding in public? How obscene! How dare she!!!!" And therein lies the problem. We say we are supportive, but we don't follow through with it.

Workplaces don't provide comfortable, quiet, private, "lactation rooms" for their nursing moms. Moms' get hassled by people while nursing in public. Moms and their nurslings get thrown off planes. Women are harrassed for "indecent exposure". Barbara Walters states on her national show that sitting next to a nursing mom on a plane makes her "uncomfortable".

Did you know that American women have no legal right to nurse in public (at least in most states)? Newsweek pointed out that an attempt to change this is underway. US legislators are trying to pass a federal level protection for nursing women. They are also attempting to require workplaces to provide lactation rooms and for paid breaks for their nursing employees. On one hand, this pleases me that something is finally getting done. On the other hand, its royally pissing me off that its taking federal legislation to protects babies rights to be fed when they are hungry.

It shouldn't take federal oversight for women to be able to breastfeed their children! And all these stupid modesty coverups are absolutely making the problem worse. Not only is it buying into the whole "A breast is a sexual object" crap it actually draws more attention to what you are doing! I'm sorry, but lifting up your shirt and latching a baby on is a lot less attention grabbing than draping this huge thing over your upper body and fumbling around 'cause you can't see what you are doing. And its denying the baby the one thing s/he needs besides the milk in the breast, the sight of his mommy's face!

I went out with my mom friends the other night (The Pasta Pomodoro fiasco) and we got into a rather heated discussion about it. C's argument is that a woman should be modest and cover up when nursing because it might offend other people. My attitude is (shock here) Fuck 'em! If it bothers them, its not my problem. My baby is hungry, I'm feeding him/her. And by saying that Mom should be modest is inherently not supportive. Saying that modesty is required is essentially saying that what mom is doing is sexual. Americans need to get over themselves and the idea that a boob is nothing but a sexual object.

So, Nursing Mom's of America! Whip those boobs out and feed your children openly and with pride. Hold your head high and spit in the eye of any asshole who tries to hassle you.

Comments

[allanh.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna disagree with you on ONE highly specific point: I don't think it's unreasonable for a nursing mother to cover her boob with a small blanket or diaper if she's nursing in public. This goes double for in restaurants.

It's a trade-off ... you should be able to nurse your baby any damn place you want, but not if you have to flash half the room to do it.

I've watched you breastfeed all three of your kids, and you manage to do it quietly and discreetly. However, most other nursing moms I've watched don't seem to be able to do it, and end up showing their tits.

I don't think it's a huge imposition on a nursing mother to take, for example, a clean diaper out of her baby bag before nursing ('cause she's probably gonna use it to burp the kid afterwards, anyway), and place it over the boob while the kid's using it.

So my take on it is, I will defend your right to nurse - discreetly - in public just about to the death.

Now, I'm personally not offended by seeing your tits. But I think it's definitely rude to flash tits, dick, balls, ass, or pussy at someone in public. (Certain street fairs, nudist colonies and camps aside.)

[puzzld1.livejournal.com]

I try to cover the rest of my breast once she is latched on, but sometimes the baby won't cooperate with attempts at discretion when she's hungry-littler ones with less head control especially. I can cover my boobs but I often can't cover her head-she hates it. We do the best we can, but sometimes feeding the screaming beast and silencing her is more the priority than not offending the natives :-)

[psi-star-psi.livejournal.com]

That's not really a specific point, that's a rejection of the entire thesis. The point is that nursing mothers already have enough to deal with just trying to get the baby to nurse without juggling additional pieces of cloth and breaking the line of sight to the child. If Aunt Martha gets the vapors when some nursing mother fumbles and flashes a boob so then A.M has the mother kicked off the plane, I will be attaching Aunt Martha to the Automatic Butt-Kicking Machine. And mine goes to 11.

But we all know about me: If I ran the world, the penal system would consist mostly of public squares with ABKM's and guillotines. Also available on Pay Per View!

[aelfie.livejournal.com]

WHY?

If you read my original post and replace the word modest for discreet, my argument still stands. And why double for restaurants? Everyone else is eating, why not the baby? Isn't that exclusionary?

By insisting that I cover up with a diaper (which btw, most breastfed babies don't need to be burped, they aren't swallowing air like a bottle baby) you are implying that breastfeeding is somehow sexual, obscene, something that Mom should be embarrassed about, and should not be done in public. Thus asking me to cover up in any way, shape, or form is inherently nonsupportive of the activity. Its a politer way of saying "We don't want to see it, make it go away." Which is the very attitude we are trying to change.

Why do American's view breastfeeding as something that should be hidden? Beacause they think the breast is reserved solely for sex. By including it in your list of things of the bodily parts that should not be "flashed" you are perpetuating this position. Its just a body part. There's nothing inherently rude about skin.

I think America needs to get over its puritanical views of the human body and the things it can do. Goodness knows a lot of Europeans don't hold these views and they have some of the highest breastfeeding rates in the world. And its culturally acceptable and encouraged to breastfeed the baby anywhere.

And if you still think I should refrain from exposing my breast because its rude, then I think it should be just as rude, obscene, and illegal for a man to wander around without a shirt, after all, he has breasts and nipples too. =)

[allanh.livejournal.com]

It's not about the breastfeeding. In our (admittedly) stoopid society ... it's about the breast.

Until North American society stops placing an emphasis on public violence instead of public nudity, we're going to have this problem.

I find it personally offensive that it's OK for our media outlets to distribute PG and R rated movies and show news clips with corpses, people getting killed, people shooting each other ... yet Janet Jackson's breast pops out during a Super Bowl and people are crying for the fucking death penalty. Hypocritical at best.

And I would agree with you that men shouldn't go topless in restaurants, either. :) I was raised to believe in the "no shoes, no shirt, no service" rule.

Oh. I also agree that our society has a stupid - again, "hypocritical" fits best - fixation on keeping women's breasts covered while allowing men to go topless. This makes about as much sense to me as legalizing alcohol and tobacco while outlawing pot.