Asked to stop breastfeeding

[MsCoco]

Recently we went on holiday to a caravan park down by the south coast. The caravan park is really aimed at families - a petting farm, soft play, kids shows etc. We were in the swimming pool area - there’s a kiddy splash pool and a toddler swimming pool, the whole place is filled with young families. We’re playing in the toddler pool and my youngest DD needs a feed, she’s 6 weeks old, so I exit the pool and sit on the side to feed her whilst watching DH and our other children play.

I’m breastfeeding and a lifeguard comes over to me and tells me I have to stop, I’m not allowed to feed and I have to go to the changing rooms to do that. I was a bit taken aback and just said ok and stopped feeding, and he then went over to another lifeguard and said ‘I’ve told her’.

I’m genuinely interested to hear thoughts - was I wrong to breastfeed in this scenario? I was very discreet, and felt quite embarrassed to be told off. Why would they have this policy?

They are, though. Legally, he cannot tell OP to move and breastfeed elsewhere. It's not up to them whether to allow it or not.

You didn't tell him to fuck off?

Yes I know. The conversation turned to, what about IN the pool.

Hey op. I too have been to a caravan park on south coast (probably not the same one though) and breast fed in the pool when my DD was about 5 months. Nobody stopped me or said anything.

From what you’ve written it doesn’t sound like you were actually in the water in which case they were breaking the law and you could report them. I was actually in the water 😅

Ive since see various MN threads that claim it’s a health and safety issue but I’m not convinced that’s the case. This is what La Leche League say on the matter:
https://www.laleche.org.uk/breastfeeding-at-a-swimming-pool/#:~:text=well%20as%20women!-,Equality%20Act%202010,age%20is%20considered%20sex%20discrimination.

He can but not if it’s discriminatory.

If, for example, OP entered a room which had a ‘staff only’ sign on the door to breastfeed, she could be asked to leave, because it isn’t discriminating - anyone else doing the same thing would also be asked to leave. Breastfeeding doesn’t give you the right to do it anywhere you like whenever you please, it just means you can’t be treated differently because you’re doing it.

Urine is someone else's body fluid, as is snot, saliva and countless other fluids in every swimming pool. If it's such a horrifying thought, pools are honestly best avoided. Breastmilk is probably the least offensive bodily fluid in there.

Why is breastmilk being flagged up as such an issue? To be blunt, if I had a gun to my head I'd jump into a pool full of breastmilk before one filed led with pee. And I'd bet any amount of money that every public swimming pool in the UK has WAY more urine in it that breastmilk and baby vomit combined.

Assuming but not granting that the lifeguard was right to tell the OP not breastfeed where she was, what is the justification for sending her to the changing rooms?

@Jamtartforme

"I don’t think people worry about getting radiation poisoning or cholera from breastmilk, it’s just the fact it’s somebody else’s bodily fluid. Can you really not understand why somebody wouldn’t want a stranger’s bodily fluid on them, no matter how sterile?"

But in a pool, you do know there's a lot of wee? Sick? Blood? Maybe even poo!

So? I would say the same about somebody peeing in the pool - I would rather no bodily fluids full stop. Besides I wouldn’t want to feed my baby in such an unhygienic environment - the thought of them ingesting chlorinated water full of sweat and pee is 🤢

I am not in UK, but I take my baby to swimming lessons. I have seen small babies be fed in the pool. They also spew in pool sometimes too.
It would be illegal to say anything to a breastfeeding mother here.
Baby is 6 months old now so can’t be fed in public as he is too nosy and has to look around too much 😂

Ffs. It is legal for a woman to breastfeed anywhere it is legal for the woman to be. And it's got nothing to do with 'food and drink'.

Years ago there was a thread after a woman was told she couldn't bf in an art gallery, and posters were saying maybe food and drink were banned, maybe the baby would be sick, blah blah. Depressing that we are still having these conversations.

I refer you once again to the strangers' piss in all swimming pools and the strangers' piss/snot/saliva on every door handle you touched today. You may no want other people's bodily fluids on you, but sorry to say if you go out in the world without a hazmat suit, they're on you. As long as you wash your hands and your body reasonably regularly, you're none the worse for it. Why get so particularly het up about breast milk? Is it because while you can't call out random strangers for scratching inside their nostril/biting their nails without even thinking about it before touching public items/shaking your hand. It's pretty easy to humiliate and isolate a breastfeeding woman?

@Jamtartforme I assume you never go swimming then 😂

Yes and I don’t agree with weeing/pooing/vomiting in the pool either. One doesn’t make the other okay. That’s just my opinion but then public pools are vile so I don’t use them!

I am a breastfeeding woman. Currently listening to DS stirring and wondering whether it’s nearly time for his next visit to the milkshake bar!

If your baby/kids are in the pool, they are ingesting it FFS. They dive in the water, they splash each other whilst laughing, they put their faces into the pool and lap it like dogs sometimes before you can stop them. The very least likely they are to be ingesting the pool water is when they've got their mouth vacuum sealed to your nipple. So many herrings! So red these herrings are!

Wait… what’s that floating in your coffee?? Is it a strange cows bodily fluid. Think this level of hysteria can only be justified if all of you are vegans!

@herewegoroundthebastardbush thank you! I doubt we will be stopping any time soon; she loves it and so do I ♥️

Feeding in the pool is more hygienic than swimming as baby doesn't go in the water. I did take mine to swimming lessons where they ducked under and all sorts, just feeding him in the pool would have involved no contact with the water, but I trusted the chlorine would do its job, especially with a class full of babies. 🫣
Come to think of it, breastfeeding only in the pool, and not swimming, has less chance of anything going in, if your top half isn't in the water. The two of us fully in the water, just swimming, while my supply was still regulating and he was in a swim nappy probably had a higher risk!

Don't go in a pool then because they all have piss shit snot and sweat in them all the time.

Yes but I imagine you're one of those who purse their lips and talk about the importance of being "discreet". And have some sort of menta limit for age of feeding the baby where it suddenly becomes "weird" or "just for the mum at this point". Being a breastfeeding mum doesn't mean you support all women to exercise their legal right to breastfeed where they want for as long as they want as discreetly or otherwise as they choose. As evidenced by your posts on this thread.

It is far from unusual for us women to create dichotomies out of the smallest of differences in order to create hierarchies of virtue that we can position ourselves at the top of. It's a function of living under patriarchy for so long, that desire to be the "good girl". You'll feel much better once you shake it off.

Quite.

Well there we are then. In which case, why do you give a fuck if women feed their babies in them??? You know, since you don't use them. Could it be because you get a bit of a thrill from shaming other women?

yawn

You breathe in and swallow other people's spit and snot all the time.