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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Possible legislation for right to breastfeed in public

27 replies

twelveyeargap · 13/05/2007 16:58

In the Sunday Times. Women may get right to breastfeed in public.

Fingers crossed. Would bring us in line with Scotland.

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whomovedmychocolate · 13/05/2007 17:58

I can't get the page up but I do anyway regardless of what people think.

whomovedmychocolate · 13/05/2007 18:00

Aha finally got it.

McDonalds ought to be ashamed of themselves though, even if they have changed their rules. Mind you, it would give the baby a mcdonalds like food experience to be fed in the loo

Cazee · 13/05/2007 18:02

So our breast feeding picnic on Saturday is perfectly timed! Well done The UrbanDryard

Cazee · 13/05/2007 18:03

Am loving the slogan ?nothing is fitter than a breastfed nipper?

twelveyeargap · 13/05/2007 18:04

Suspect it was a junior manager, who was being harrassed by a complaining customer that asked the woman to leave, tbh. I used to work in McD's years ago and there was never a problem with it.

I'm just really glad to see that they're hoping to legislate on the issue in general.

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theUrbanDryad · 13/05/2007 18:07

woo hoo! well done Breastfeeding Manifesto people!

i still haven't heard back from the police, but they have to give permission by law, or give us a reason why not.

now all i have to do is find my train fare!

Cazee · 13/05/2007 18:16

What about this chap's comment after the article

I was on the tube one day and a young mother opened her top, put her breast on full display and started to suckle her infant. I'm a man, I couldn't help at least a quick look and so did others.
A (female) guard happened to get on at the next station, and immediately told the mother to stop. The mother protested vocifereously, eager to assert her rights.
"I don't care about you or me love," said the guard, "but we get young lads on here and when they see that they tend to cause trouble."
The young mother thought for a split second, and put the offending instrument away.
How sensible - I'm not likely to make trouble, but some people undoubtedly would, and I'm afraid we all have to bear in mind how others might respond, even to our perfectly innocent actions. In an age when women are the targets of unwelcome attentions from some men, why encourage them?
Richard, London,

This is why we need a LAW

mush4brains · 13/05/2007 18:18

Good article but some of the readers comments have show a real lack & misunderstanding about breastfeeding- infact some of them have really made me quite& just show why maybe a law is necessary.

mush4brains · 13/05/2007 18:19

cazee, cross posted but totally agree. glad I wasnt there !!

suis · 13/05/2007 23:52

I just want to add my encouragement to you all. I'm in Scotland and it makes me much more confident to feed in public knowing that if anyone challenges me about it I can just tell them that they aren't allowed to stop me. I do always try to be discreet, and I have no desire to offend anyone, but it's one of those things where the more people do it, the more it will become socially acceptable to feed, and not acceptable to object to it... so good on you all !

Malaleche · 13/05/2007 23:58

I only found out about this recently and am surprised that it would be ok to let an infant go hungry rather than bfeed in public, surely the right of the child to be attended to comes first? What does the law say about THAT?

mylittleimps · 14/05/2007 00:18

i was amazed to discover you can be stopped BF in public (I wasn't and did BF in public), FGS it's natural and happened since the beginning of time.

i refused to go to an appointment at the local hospital (who promoted BF on the maternity ward) as the letter said special arrangements would have to be made for BF mothers and when i called and asked what they meant it was incase other patients were offended about BF taking place in the waiting room!!

missgriss · 14/05/2007 00:22

I'm in Scotland and it made an amazing difference when I BF knowing nobody could tell me to move else where etc. I definitely think the rest of the company should follow suit.

twelveyeargap · 14/05/2007 08:18

mylittleimps! I would complain to the hospital trust. That's appalling. Really.

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mush4brains · 14/05/2007 09:02

My friend is a WPC, in her stations work canteen there was a heated discussion as one of the PC's had asked a woman to stop bfing in a park that morning. He had had a compliant from someone & had gone up to the lady & told her it was indecent exposure & she had to stop. I am beginning to feel really really strongly about this & think I would have told the PC jobsworth to arrest me. I am really [angry & sad]at the effect things like this have on mothers bfing & being deprived or intimidated into not giving their LO the best start in life.

DominiConnor · 14/05/2007 09:07

Again, it's bullying isn't it ?
Rather than deal with an unreasonable member of the public, he took the easy option of bullying a feeding mum.
Bet she was alone ?
If I'd been with DW, I'd have taken his name, and lodged a formal complaint against him.

theUrbanDryad · 14/05/2007 09:29

the problem is, that bf-ing makes you feel very vulnerable. in fact, i would go one step further and say that having a baby with you makes you feel vulnerable. i always, always thought that i would give as good as i got, and be lucid and articulate in the face of adversity when bf-ing in public. but when i actually faced a man shouting at me that bf-ing my baby on a park bench was disgusting i burst into tears. i am not a shy person, and this was my reaction, so i worry for the mothers who are less confident about their actions than i am.

is anyone looking on the GMTV forum this morning? someone from my postnatal thread phoned me and told me about it.

twelveyeargap · 14/05/2007 10:44

Read a bit of the GMTV forum. COuldn't take it at all. Too .

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nailpolish · 14/05/2007 10:50

living in Scotland made breastfeeding in public so much easier. no one even batted an eyelid cos its so common here now

the rest of the uk needs to catch up

MissGolightly · 14/05/2007 10:56

at the stories on here!! I must have been incredibly lucky, I have whipped my boobs out everywhere from shopping centres, to restaurants, even a church once, and no-one has ever said anything.

We definitely need a law. How can it be legal to deny a baby the right to nourishment fgs?

Kathyis6incheshigh · 14/05/2007 10:59

We soooo need a law.
I have never had the slightest problem bf in public but I want people to know that they have a right to do it and there's nothing bolshie about it whatever.

DominiConnor · 14/05/2007 11:17

I think we need to lose the dippy leftie notion of a "right". This is not a "rights" issue.

As a bloke I would never ever dream of harassing a BFing woman, but that's not really due to being a "new man". It's due to an extreme reluctance to getting involved with the breasts of a stranger. That's social conditioning I suppose, more than my social/political views.

That may be not obvious to some women, but most blokes are actually quite conservative about these things.

We had the case earlier where a dimwit cop bullied a BFing mother.
The police are crap at enforcing "rights", especially if they don't get arrests which make their statistics look good.

Recall that "assault" in British law does not have to involve physical contact. Shouting in someone's face counts the same, as do threats.

Thus those who harass BFing mothers are committing an assault with a sexual element. Not that is a law the police would lurrrve to enforce. They like catching sex criminals, they want arrests, and given that most are blokes it will appeal to their self image of the protectors of decent folk.

You wouldn't need many convictions, followed by the grief that follows to get BFers left very well alone.

And frankly,(again as a bloke) altough BFing mothers don't see much sexual in this, I regard it as much the same thing as groping a woman on the tube. It would not be a defence if she was wearing a low cut dress, and a bloke who harassed topless women on a beach would quickly get his lights punched out and/or enjoy a stay in the cells.
Worse, since as several here say,

Give up this guardian reader crap, and go for their throats. A registered sex offender gets his career knocked about, can't travel to a growing list of countries, and will have quite a miserable time of it all.

edam · 14/05/2007 11:33

Thing is Dominic, it shouldn't be up to a woman who is busy breastfeeding to demand the name and address of some rude man (I didn't have two free hands to dig out a notebook and pen when I was feeding ds). And I doubt rude man (or woman) would give out their details anyway. And I doubt the local police station would be enthusiastic about following it up.

Specific legislation would be helpful as it would mean all chains of cafes, public buildings, police officers and so on would KNOW that they can't harass b/f women.

It's like forced marriages, the police could intervene under existing legislation, but without a specific offence few of the people involved would realise they could seek legal help (quite apart from all the other difficulties they would face).

twelveyeargap · 14/05/2007 11:39

I think the focus of the law, is not in fact the "right" to breastfeed in public. (The headline was misleading.) It seems as though the focus is going to be that it will be illegal to ask a woman NOT to breastfeed, which is not quite the same thing. It's not a dippy left-wing thing. It is (as far as I can gather) to be enforced more like sexual harrassment/ racism laws.

That is, the law doesn't give us the right to be men or women, the law makes it illegal to harrass or discriminate based on gender.

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Cazee · 14/05/2007 11:43

Did anyone just see channel 5? Lovely mummy breastfeeding her baby in the studio while being interviewed, along with the articulate breastfeeding manifesto lady. Was lovely to see (and very discrete)