Why is it that mothers have to constantly battle for their right to breastfeed in public, particularly breastfeeding of toddlers, without being made to feel ashamed?
In the most recent violation of breastfeeding rights, Facebook pulled photos of breastfeeding Moms off the page of Kristi Kemp and locked her out of her account. Facebook has since apologized for its actions and reinstated Ms. Kemp’s page.
Ms. Kemp maintains a Facebook page called “Breastfeeding/Mama Talk” where she helps others overcome the stigma of breastfeeding in public. Â She herself stopped breastfeeding after only 3 months because she felt embarrassed.
Ms. Kemp explains:
“When I started the page, women kept coming to me saying how embarrassed they were, how ashamed they were to breastfeed in public, Â and I realized it was a bigger issue than what I even imagined.”
Indeed, women seem to have to constantly battle to breastfeed in public.
Who could forget the 2006 incident where Emily Gillette made national headlines for being booted off a Delta flight because she refused to cover up while breastfeeding her one-year-old daughter?
Breastfeeding can be challenging enough for a new Mom learning the ropes without the disapproval and finger-wagging of a misinformed, squirmy public.
While breastfeeding tiny infants in public seems to be fairly well accepted, the older a child gets, the less tolerant the public becomes should a woman choose to continue nursing.
The Battle for Public Acceptance of Extended Breastfeeding
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of a child’s life and then continuing at least until the child’s first birthday with mother and child maintaining the breastfeeding relationship beyond this point as long as mutually desired.
I personally chose to breastfeed my 3 children well beyond their first birthday, breastfeeding my first two children until about 24 months. Â My third child self weaned a few months before she turned 4 years old.
I am well aware of the stigma attached to mothers who breastfeed toddlers! Â More than once I received dirty looks from people while breastfeeding my children in a restaurant or other public place.
One lady went so far as to suggest that I should move to the bathroom to breastfeed. Â Mmmm. Â I don’t think so! Â “Would you like to eat in the bathroom?” Â I asked testily.
Nursing my children in the bathroom was something I always refused to do, no matter how uncomfortable the folks around me might get. Â I also refused to use a cover-up when I nursed my children, as it was my experience that this would quickly overheat the child making for an extremely uncomfortable and sometimes sweaty situation. Â Granted, I live in hot, humid Florida. Â Covers might be nice for extra warmth in other areas of the world.
I also found cover-ups such a hassle too. Â What if you forgot to put it back in the diaper bag or left it in the car when you went into the restaurant?
After a few early mishaps, I simply ditched using one altogether.
Even the YMCA, committed to improving the health of families and children, proved to be an unfriendly environment when I was nursing my babies, particularly as they got older. Â There was absolutely nowhere comfortable to nurse there. Â Hard, wooden benches with no wall behind them were the only choice in the locker room, so I opted for the benches in the busy and noisy hallway where I could at least lean against a wall while nursing before placing my child in the nursery for a few minutes while I attended a yoga class.
I lobbied on multiple occasions for a comfortable recliner to be placed in the YMCA locker room to give nursing mothers like me a relaxing and quiet place to breastfeed, but was repeatedly shot down by management.
No doubt, if a mother wishes to nurse her child beyond the first few months when her baby is small, she will need to prepare herself mentally for the likely disapproval of a misinformed public that still is not at all accepting of the many benefits of extending the breastfeeding relationship well past a child’s first birthday.
Why Bother to Nurse Beyond the First Year?
About three-quarters of mothers in 2009 chose to initiate breastfeeding after the birth of their baby. Unfortunately, many stop in the ensuing weeks and months for a variety of reasons. Â By 6 months postpartum, 47% of mothers are still breastfeeding (only 15% of these exclusively as recommended by the AAP) and by 12 months, this figure drops to 25%.
Statistics for the number of women who breastfeed beyond one year in the Western world are nearly non-existent because many mothers are not willing to even admit to extended breastfeeding!
Nursing to age four as proudly demonstrated by supermodel Jamie Lynne Grumet in the controversial Time magazine cover above from May 21, 2012, is extremely rare. Â According to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), however, breastfeeding at that age shouldn’t be rare as there are significant benefits to both Mom and child for continuing breastfeeding well into toddlerhood.
Not only do Mom’s chances of breast cancer continue to diminish the longer she breastfeeds, but the benefits of providing breastmilk to a child who can easily eat and drink other foods instead are threefold:
- Continued immune protection
- Better social adjustment
- Sustainable food source in times of emergency
In fact, the AAFP states that “it has been estimated that a natural weaning age for humans is between two and seven years” and that despite the public’s perception to the contrary, there is absolutely “no evidence that extended breastfeeding is harmful to mother or child.”
Indeed, breastmilk evolves with the child, continuing to provide what Nature deems most beneficial for that age.
A study published in the journal Pediatrics in 2005 found that the expressed breastmilk of 34 women who were nursing children older than one year had “significantly increased fat and energy contents, compared with milk expressed by women who have been lactating for shorter periods. During prolonged lactation, the fat energy contribution of breast milk to the infant diet might be significant.”
What Did You Do?
What do you think about extended breastfeeding? Â Did you choose to practice it yourself or would you if given the opportunity?
If you did practice extended breastfeeding, how long did you nurse your child?
My hope is that by the time my daughter and future daughters-in-law are nursing my grandchildren, there will be a graceful and comfortable acceptance of this natural and healthy practice – and comfortable recliners in the locker rooms of YMCAs and other community facilities around the country to prove it!
Sources
Fat and Energy Contents of Expressed Human Breast Milk in Prolonged Lactation
I breastfed my first two until about 15 months, and am still nursing my 18 month old. I felt ‘pressured’ to wean the first two around 12 months so I started the weaning process then. Now with our third I have confidence to continue until it seems right to stop…but I am hesitant to have him nurse in public because of strange looks from others, and even friends will make comments, “You are still nursing him?!”. Thanks for encouraging moms to continue on —
Yeah, I’ve never understood this dislike for breastfeeding. It’s so much easier than making bottles. (I get that some can’t. But some just chose not to.)
I think it’s a good point about nursing openly in front of your older children, including boys. I do that and I think it is telling them that this is right and good and expected. (I hope so anyway.)
I don’t like to make people uncomfortable and I have been in situations where I was nursing and I wondered if anyone was uncomfortable, but I’ve never had anyone confront me about it. I would be super mad if they did though. That would feel like an invasion of privacy.
Shout out to Nordstroms and Ikea for putting nursing rooms in their stores- big comfortable rooms with comfy chairs and toys for you to nurse in. It makes the whole experience so nice. When you have infants, you almost can’t NOT nurse whenever you out. They seem to nurse ’round the clock as it is.
One other thing. I’m not against a nursing cover-up if it makes you more comfortable. I use them, depending on the situation. The hot thing is an issue. But I dislike this attitude that you must. Some women seem to wear a tent and they do it for modesty-in the sense that they think it might be sexually provocative. I think that is absurd. Most guys just avoid looking that way if they know you’re nursing (and are uncomfortable with it) and if they happened to see anything, I really doubt it would do anything for them.
I think it’s strange that you would find it an invasion of privacy if someone asked you about nursing – in public. If you’re in public, by definition it’s no longer private. I say go for it, but if someone else that you’re sharing space with outside your home asks you about it, that’s their prerogative.
I chose to cover up not because I felt that I was provocative – probably the opposite! I felt uncomfortable exposing the entire breast with the exception of the nipple uncomfortable to myself, and felt that my belly looked gross and flabby after childbirth so lifting my shirt and exposing my belly was also not an option without cover. It’s not a provocative thing, I think for most moms who covered up here it’s about their own person level of comfort with being more exposed than usual.
I have four children. My three youngest are adopted. I nursed three of the four for 4,5, and 6 years. The one I did not nurse spent most of her four years nursing a bottle while I held her. All of my children weaned themselves when they were ready. Today they are very healthy well rounded children. The only thing I would change; I would put homemade raw milk formula formula in the supplementer.
I had a doctor tell me that breastmilk was not beneficial to the baby after they reach six months of age! This was after I told her I planned on breastfeeding for at least two years or until my child self weaned. I couldn’t believe what she was saying…I was dumbfounded!
I’m currently breastfeeding my 18 month old. I read this article below and made me very happy to know how other countries view breastfeeding.
http://www.incultureparent.com/2011/02/breastfeeding-land-genghis-khan/
I too have breastfed all four of my children longer than one year. My fourth is 21 months and still going strong, despite the finger wagging of the pediatrician and the pediatric gastroenterologist we had to see when he was 12 months (who told me that I would be hurting my son by continuing to breastfeed because I couldn’t possibly supply the nourishment he needed). He mostly nurses and eats meat for his food and rejects just about everything else – aside from the occasional cultured milk green smoothie!
For my own comfort and privacy, I choose to use a very light blanket (the weight of a sheet) most of the time that I am in public during warmer months. I prefer not to expose any part of my breast to strangers, so if I have to nurse and don’t have anything to cover with, I will carefully pull up my shirt and keep it tucked down around his face so that everything stays covered. He has learned the ropes with this, so on the rare occasion that it does happen, he does really well. I practice this same technique at home when my older teenage boys are present as well. All of this may give me the title of “Puritan” as mentioned in an earlier comment, but I feel it is consistent with my own personal standards of my own modesty in public.
Thanks for the great article! It is nice to be encouraged to continue nursing in the face of our backwards communities.
My son is 17 months and I am pregnant with my second. He self weened himself from daytime feedings around 11 months, so now he just nurses in the morning and before bed. The morning feeding seems the most important to him so I doubt that he will give it up anytime soon, which is fine, I prefer him to stop on his own. Not sure if he will continue when my next baby is born since my milk will change, but we shall see. I did cover up in public (for my own comfort, not anyone else) and never really had any issues. My family and in-laws are all very pro-breastfeeding, however a couple of my uninitiated sisters thought the idea of breastfeeding older toddler was strange. The hospital I gave birth at, my midwife practice and my pediatrician all greatly encourage breastfeeding.
I really think the problem is our oversexualized culture…the uninitiated see the breasts as nothing but a sex organ, so they sexualize it and I think that is the problem. I find it laughable that with the amount of nudity on tv and the stats of people that look at pornography on a regular basis that breastfeeding is seen as so offensive!
My Mama breastfed my oldest brother, but the last 3 children including myself could not nurse because she didn’t have the right food I guess and the doctor told her her milk was like blue john and had no nutrition. The oldest never had ear aches and the three of us who didn’t get to breastfeed did. Back in the mid-50’s women wore a shirt specifically for breastfeeding. I was just a toddler and I was at the doctor’s clinic for an immunization and I walked by this lady with her shirt pulled over her infant’s head and being naturally curious, I pulled the shirt up to see what was going on. I had never seen a baby nurse before and I was red-faced and embarrassed from head to toe. All I could think of to ask her to cover my embarrassment was: He’s hungry, isn’t he? She was kind and smiled and pulled her shirt down and I went to the bathroom and hid until some older patient came banging on the door. I didn’t want to face the lady after pulling such a bone-headed stunt and if there had been a small crack in the floor, I would have crawled thru it. I knew it was natural and I learned after that to never try to figure out what was going on when a lady had her nursing shirt over her baby’s head. I think extended nursing is a great idea myself and results in a healthier and happier child.
My daughter was a premmie and i couldn’t breastfeed her, but she did get donor milk for some months. I breastfed my son until he was nearly 6. I did it in public until he was 3, after that it was more a indoor before nap- and bedtime thing. Like you Sarah, I didn’t like to cover up. I found often that mums who were trying to cover it up, actually were drawing more attention to themselves 😉 It didn’t matter me so much what other people were thinking, but the disapproval from family was sometimes stinging.
The cover page for Time was meant to cause people to remember there even is still a print magazine called Time, before it goes the way of Newsweek. The picture is posed for maximum shock value and therefore disgusting.
All magazine covers are created to provoke the buyer to purchase, but it’s NOT disgusting.
its disgusting that the pro breastfeeding crowd current message has nothing to do with breastfeeding and everything to do with exhibitionism. it is actually against the law to expose your breast in public pretty much everywhere – even if a 6 year old is attached to the end of it