Why it's illogical to tell women to nurse in the restroom

Now that I'm no longer nursing, it seems that I'm even more acutely aware of public bathrooms: specifically, what if I were nursing here right now? Logistically, nursing in public with three kids was sometimes difficult, especially since I was not up on baby wearing and how awesome it is.

I once attempted to cram my toddler in one of those insanely huge race car shopping carts into the bathroom with me and he wouldn't fit. Do I leave him outside basically unattended? Do I leave the door open so I can see him, and therefore the rest of the world could theoretically see me, too? Then I thought, what if I were nursing? Egads, that would potentially be a logistical nightmare, since women are typically expected to feed their babies in stalls instead of disgracefully doing so in public.

What about handicapped stalls, especially when there's only one available? If women are supposed to breastfeed in bathrooms, is it ethical for a nursing baby to take up that stall space instead of an actual handicapped person?

What about places with only one bathroom? If nursing should only be done in there, then most people are not going to appreciate waiting in line for a single stall for a baby to feed (both sides!), while everyone else has to pee. But you said I should go nurse in the bathroom, right? So you'll have to wait until my child is finished eating. Sounds gross, I know.

As far as single stalls, this lovely photo was taken at one of my favorite grocery stores - they only have one bathroom, and in this case I think an employee did not have enough time to properly clean it. Either that, or a poor customer thought she did a better job than she did. Most of us wouldn't want to sit there to relieve ourselves, much less nurse a child there. Still think a baby should have to eat in the bathroom?

When there's only one bathroom available, who takes precedence? The person who has to pee, or the baby who is screaming loudly? Tough call. Some would suggest mom and baby stay home, which doesn't seem fair, really, when life must go on. The rest of the family doesn't stop eating just because there's a nursing baby at home that keeps mom from going grocery shopping; errands don't stop needing to be done. Staying at home is a great option for those who don't feel like ever leaving the house until baby is weaned. Child won't take a bottle? Then you have another problem. Can't pump more than half an ounce no matter what you do? But just pump! Because pumping is so easy, surely everyone should be able to do it (says the woman who pumps Niagara Falls at every sitting). Sadly it isn't that easy, nor should a woman be forced into doing something potentially stressful and unnecessary when she could just bring her baby with her.

I find that people are so quick to give solutions to a problem that isn't that they rarely think about the next step: it's like they expect every public restroom ever to have a place to sit down (besides the toilet) and rest and be spotlessly clean. They expect there always to be a bottle and for that baby to always take it, without issue. The lengths women (even myself, regrettably) go to to avoid offending someone - even to the point of never breastfeeding, sadly - is pathetic.

Mom kicked out of pool for breastfeeding

A mom in Great Britain has staged a nurse-in because she was asked to leave the pool area while nursing recently. The lifeguard asked her to stop because it violated the 'no food and drink' rule. But the thing is, she was physically in the pool when she was asked to stop.

Normally I'm all for breastfeeding your baby wherever, whenever the baby needs to be fed. But I must admit, I find the idea of breastfeeding while in the pool kind of gross - but it has nothing to do with modesty, covering up, exposing the breast or any of that. 

Despite being treated with chemicals,
swimming pools are still pretty
disgusting when it comes to germs and
bacteria. Studies have shown that kids
and adults alike are known to treat it as
a public bathroom.
Photo: analab01/Stock.xchng

I think one person actually unfriended me on FaceBook over posting this article, perhaps misunderstanding my concern and interpreting it that I don't support public breastfeeding. Actually, it's quite the opposite. But I can understand how the pool would be concerned with her nursing there, and they actually stated that she was free to nurse anywhere around the pool area, just not in the water. 

Some mentioned the risks of milk leaking (probably unlikely) and the baby throwing up. In my case, this would've been a reality with my second, who regularly threw up copious amounts and then proceeded to want to nurse all over again. I probably would not have wanted to nurse in the pool, but had I decided to, most likely we would have contaminated the entire area. The cost to treat a pool that's been contaminated is likely quite high because it's a very involved process, involves closing portions of the pool and results in a loss of revenue because no one can swim. 

Despite all the chemicals used, pools apparently are still pretty disgusting. The woman was sitting in the jetted whirlpool area (I'm assuming the baby pool) where probably nearly all of the four-and-under set forego interrupting their play and just simply urinate wherever they are. If you've ever used those "swim diapers," they're pretty much worthless at containing anything. And it's estimated that even 1 in 5 adults pee in the pool. Disgusting!

Not to mention the grossness that's floating: residue from personal care products and sun lotions, body oils, dead skin cells. Yuck. It almost makes you never want to go swimming again, breastfeeding or not. 

It's been estimated that many people don't shower before entering the pool (who knew?) and therefore all kinds of interesting things like e. coli hang out in the filters and everywhere else. Bacterias that can ear infections and skin rashes were found in a majority of public pools, and "pools used primarily by children tested positive 73 percent of the time." Apparently public municipal pools are the worst offenders. 

It's not like your breasts are sterile, but perhaps reducing one more point of contact while nursing is wise, rather than staging a protest to fight for your right to breastfeed in what is quite literally a public bathroom. 

Moms kicked out for breastfeeding - again

At least two reports have surfaced this week - one in the US, and one in Canada - that breastfeeding mothers were harassed and asked to leave when they were seen nursing their babies in a public space.

Brittany Warfield was nursing her baby, with a jacket covering the infant, at a Houston-area Hollister store when a manager accosted her and asked her to leave. According to Warfield, she was sitting in chairs near the front of the store, with her baby covered, when the manager approached her and made a scene, to the point where others were stopping to look at what was going on.

As usual, the comments spark controversy. Basically, if you aren't runway-model perfect and drop dead gorgeous, they assume you're a "cow" and don't want to see you nursing your baby, because, after all, breasts are primarily sexual tools and serve no other function whatsoever.

The mom appropriately noted, however, the scantily-clad mannequins posed in the windows as she was getting yelled at for having the indecency to nurse her baby.

Interestingly, the same chain received a complaint back in 2010 because a manager kicked a shopper out for nursing in the fitting room. Which sort of blows that whole "You need to do it in private!" argument right out of the water. I can understand if there were dozens of people waiting in line to try on clothes, but really - I kind of doubt this was the case.

Another mom in Nova Scotia, Canada, was shopping in a mall on Christmas Eve when she asked an employee at Claire's for a chair so she could sit down, at the back of the store, and nurse her baby. Even though she reported that her baby was covered by her husband's coat, the manager of Claire's kicked her out of the store. Of course, the comments were inane as usual, including one person who harps endlessly on the fact that the woman had the audacity to ask for a chair. I'm guessing that if this were anyone else (like an elderly or disabled person), that would be okay, right? This one kills me. It's her fault because she wanted to shop on Christmas Eve, with a baby! Oh, the NERVE of some people! 

Funny how when you're harping on chairs in aisles and public safety, not once do you consider the potential unsafe conditions of feeding a baby in a dirty bathroom. It's like we've suspended all disbelief for a moment!

It seems people really don't like to be confronted on their views that they consider the breast's primary function to be a sexual one. They will often come up with a million other reasons why it's wrong, unclean, inappropriate, etc. often finishing up with, "But breastfeeding is a basic human right!" (As long as you're doing it in a way I deem appropriate) It underscores how comfortable (or tolerant) our culture is of breasts that are performing their sexual function in a public place, but not when they're being used to feed a baby. Asking themselves, "Why do I feel this way?" would cause them to examine their own ideas about it and might possibly make them look like a fool. I mean, really, if our breasts are innately designed to produce milk, then ... what's the problem? It would force them to admit that they don't understand the mechanics of it (like why it "spilling" on the clothes is not really a credible threat) or why our culture is so against it (and why you see so few women doing it in a public space). Many dissenters' arguments just don't hold up to logic.

Once upon a time in America, you were considered weird if you
didn't breastfeed. These women apparently don't give a crap that the
person next to them has just "whipped it out" and is feeding her child. 

A history of breastfeeding in public

When you're deciding on whether to make the commitment to nursing, undoubtedly for some the idea of nursing in public is daunting. Even experienced mothers have told me they never fully "mastered" it, and we all have our own individual levels of comfort when it comes to doing it. Add an older kid to the mix, and suddenly it's like juggling a three-ring circus with one hand.

Lots of people think breastfeeding
is the best thing for baby. They
just don't want to ever catch you
doing it. Isn't there a tarp or tent
somewhere you can use to huddle
under?

I've had to think really hard about those times I nursed in public, and honestly I can't remember a whole lot. I think I mostly hid out in fitting rooms (and even a few bathrooms, but usually not for the reason you'd think - usually because as soon as I sat down to nurse a baby, the sudden, overwhelming urge to use the bathroom often hit me). I preferred those places not so much because I didn't want people seeing me nurse my baby, although because I was a bit clumsy with things that might have been part of it; but more because when I nursed, I wanted to spread out, get comfortable, and just sit. That meant I could lean back, hang my leg over a chair and get comfy. Although yes, in some ways, I was not in the mood to be stared at, harassed - even potentially - and felt generally uncomfortable and paranoid.

To think - those feelings and anxieties, over something real or perceived - can actually keep a woman from wanting to nurse at all. I had one playgroup buddy who refused to nurse even in front of us other moms, women she'd known and worked with for nearly a decade. One day I saw her bottle-feeding and realized it wasn't so much to get her daughter "used to" the idea of getting a bottle; it was because she was embarrassed to be seen doing it in front of us. Other moms propped themselves up while at my house, and even though we weren't the closest of friends, they still found a way; and yet, as I sort of watched them, it made me feel slightly weird to be sitting there as they were feeding their babies. Why? I nursed my own children; I fully supported them and wanted them to feel as comfortable as possible while relaxing in my home. Why did I feel strange about it, then?

I think because even as a nursing mother, I had seen few moms like me - nursing their babies in the open, in private, anywhere, really. How sad. How pathetic. How trained we've become (some of us, anyway) because we don't want to invite criticism, controversy or because we are made to feel like we should give more of a crap than necessary about everyone else when really, it's our babies we should be focusing on.

When people say they "don't want to see you flash your boobs in public," I wonder if they have any idea, really, that women decades before us did just that to feed their babies, often in public. What else could you do - it's not like they had tank tops and two-piece sweatsuits at their disposal in 1946. Women typically wore dresses that buttoned up the top, and that was their idea of "nursing clothing." Some dresses were styled somewhat to accommodate, many images simply show a mother unbuttoning her dress or blouse and simply feeding her baby.

So when someone tells you they don't want to see a breastfeeding mother "showing her boobs," just tell them, "Really? Because that's the way they did it 60 years ago." You know, back when everyone was conservative and puritanical, right?

'The Cornstalk Madonna,' by Orin Crooker,
Hoopestown, Ill. c. 1916. One of my
favorites.

Yeah, nowadays barely-there bikinis, thongs and cleavage are all the rage. But I bet if you sat down and decided to feed your baby, you'd be asked to leave (as many mamas have been).

At the beach. In front of people. c. 1930s.
Photo credit: Joseph Schwartz/Corbis. 

But if you're ever at the pool and happen to run into Ice-T's girlfriend, just remember that this is okay, got it? 

Most onlookers drool in approval -
but if this were a nursing mother,
I'm sure there would be an
uprising and police would be
on the scene in minutes. 

This one has always made me laugh - the only one
who apparently gets a rise out of it is a young boy who
is maybe 8 years old. The rest are like, "eh, whatever."
Source: Jennifer James/mothering.com

Babies sometimes get hungry in all kinds of places - regardless of whether they've just been fed or not - like just when you're getting ready to leave to go someplace. It looks like, throughout the ages and no matter what mode of transportation was available, this has always been the case. LOL

Notice how none of the women looks uncomfortable, and the one to the nursing mother's left doesn't seem to be saying, "OH. MY. GOD. I cannot believe she has the nerve to whip that thing out in public while we're all sitting here!"

Caption: "A mother is traveling from Louisville, KY
to Memphis, TN on a Greyhound bus. Here, she is
waiting in the Chattanooga bus terminal and breast-
feeding in public in September 1943."
Source: Jennifer James, mothering.com

I've included the above image in a past blog post, but I never realized that another image is also included in the set:

This could either be a look of consternation that says,
"Did I miss the train?" or "What was that, Gertrude? I
couldn't hear you." Now it's "Ok, when is the angry
flashmob going to show up with the police to
escort me off the property for feeding my baby?!"

This one has always cracked me up, too. This couple
is more excited about saving their farm after the
Great Depression than wasting time worrying about
what everyone thinks about her baby eating. Even
the adviser they're talking to is casual and normal
with them, not all "Mrs. Jones, would you like a
receiving blanket to cover up with? Shall I ask
if there is a nice bathroom stall or dark closet for you
to nurse your baby in?"
Source: Jennifer James, mothering.com

(It was always my dread that my baby would be hungry while I waited at the pediatrician's office - not that I didn't want anyone seeing me, but that a) all those sick people would be breathing on me and b) that I'd have to run to the bathroom, which was across two waiting rooms on the other side of the office. Then, while I was in there, they'd inevitably call my name...)

Anyway, I remember not long ago having a discussion with NICU moms that nurses actually wanted to put up a freaking screen while some of the moms nursed. I've also heard some horribly sad stories about NICU nurses being completely unsupportive - to the point of literal sabotage - of moms who wanted to nurse their babies there. Unreal.

Caption: "Mothers nursing their babies
while waiting their turn to see the doctor,
a nun standing nearby. Location: Paris, France.
Photographer: David E. Scherman.
Time/Life Magazine, August 1, 1946

There are lots more - if you want to see them, visit my gallery on Facebook here or the Facebook fan page Historic Photos & Prints of Breastfeeding.