Breastfeeding’s best so let mums publicly do it any time, anywhere
THE good thing about breastfeeding is that it’s portable — a lactating mum is Meals on Heels. The bad thing is the judgmental stares and glares of disapproving prudes.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
THE good thing about breastfeeding is that it’s portable — a lactating mum is Meals on Heels. The bad thing is the judgmental stares and glares of disapproving prudes.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten has called for breastfeeding to be allowed in Parliament after Liberal frontbencher Kelly O’Dwyer was urged to express more breastmilk to avoid missing votes.
Working mums would welcome any move that helps to normalise lactation. A poll conducted by the Start4Life campaign in the UK found a third of new mothers had shied away from breastfeeding in public, with 21 per cent feeling they were discouraged by other people.
Not just discouraged. In some places it’s against the rules.
When my baby was two months old, I packed him into a papoose carrier and ventured into a reputable department store.
A boa constrictor of shoppers coiled back from the cash register. I joined the tail end and was just hoisting up the waistband of my maternity knickers (now there’s a good look — undies in which you could hold a revival meeting) when my baby let rip with a scream that sounded like a plane coming into Tullamarine.
My milk haemorrhaged. Sweat soaked my anxious armpits and beaded my face. I seemed to be having my own weather. Shoppers glowered.
I unfastened the cat flap of my feeding bra, gritted my teeth and offered up my tender nipple to the baby’s electric pencil sharpener grip.
A desperate mother becomes blasé about breastfeeding. Believe me, there is nothing sexy about a grey maternity bra with the aesthetic appeal of an orthopedic shoe.
That’s the worst thing about lactation. The havoc it wreaks on your dress sense.
Unfortunately, this store had strict dress codes about remaining dressed. But the nearest toilets were a few floors up. And charged per pee.
“Besides, would you eat in the toilets?” I asked the store detective who was ordering me to
stop feeding.
When I refused to fumble my blancmange of a mammary back into its elasticated hammock, the store detective threatened to arrest me.
Oh, great. Now I was going to prison. The tooth fairy would have to commit a crime to
leave the 20 cents under my baby’s pillow.
His knowledge of primary colours would stop at grey. He’d teethe on steel bars. He wouldn’t learn to read from Spot Goes to the Circus, but from graffiti along the lines of “Die Police Scum”.
In the end, I was let off with a caution. But the humiliation of the experience still smarts.
And discrimination against breastfeeding mothers still exists.
Last year women staged a mass “nurse-in”, breastfeeding their babies outside Claridges Hotel because the London hotel had forced a woman to place a scarf over her baby’s head as she breastfed during tea.
Surely, when a baby is screaming on a plane or a train, aren’t we all grateful to breastfeeding mums who can silence an infant instantly?
Medical research suggests breast is best. If so, then shouldn’t we be encouraging mums to feed anywhere, any time? Now that really would be the milk of human kindness.
Human cost of pandemic goes much further than virus
Whether you are pro or anti-lockdown the grim, unintended consequences of the fixation on coronavirus are undeniable, as other diseases — including cancer and heart disease — go unchecked, and despair from joblessness, poverty and financial stress rises, writes Rita Panahi.
Premier must outline his plan so Melbourne can recover
As the community overwhelmingly complies with the Premier’s stage four restrictions, he must clearly outline his virus strategy so we can make plans to rebuild confidence and employment in our city, which right now is a ghost town, writes Jeff Kennett.