Bottle feeding mum asked to leave breast feeding cafe

[Dawnybabe]

In my local paper, the Eastern Daily Press, of Norfolk, they ran a story about a mum who had, through a friend, been asked by a member of staff at a PCT run breast feeding cafe not to return because she had bottle fed her four month old son. Please tell me I'm not the only one absolutely incandescant with rage over this? Apparently she had a medical reason for bottle feeding as well. Aren't the staff being as bigoted as the general public who force the need for a breast feeding cafe in the first place? Surely the attitude should be that you are safe to feed there however you like without any prejudice? There is enough pressure and guilt forced on bottle feeding mums as it is without staff who should know better joining in the witch hunt.

Im really shocked- whose business is it how anybody feeds thier child?

Are there really 'breastfeeding cafes?'

Doesn't matter if she had a medical reason or not. That's a dreadful attitude. There shouldn't be any them and us - just mothers feeding their babies.

I do think that is quite terrible, surely bottle feeding mums should be welcome, there could be many reasons, it could be ebm and they're not ready yet to breastfeed in public is one example where a bf'ing cafe could really help someone, but if they just chuck all bottlefeeding mums out then they'll have no chance to help!

not sure what I feel about this really, it seems sad to make a new mother feel bad but then i don't know what the purpose of a bf cafe is either. does it just mean bf mums are welcome there but so is everyone else as well or is it specifically a resource only for mums who are bf, like a drop in with bf advice etc? in which case i kind of can't see why a bottle feeding mum would want to go there but that she would be asked to leave. then it gets really complicated, what if it's expressed b/milk?

? they're timing slightly off, shouldn't this have been put out on April 1st?

maybe you sign a terms and conditions contract when you buy a cup of tea?

How did they know she wasn't feeding him expressed breaast milk ?

Norfolk primary care trust apparently runs breast feeding cafes in Attleborough, Dereham, Wymondham, Thetford, Stalham, Cromer and Mundsley. It says a spokeman has expressed concern over it and promised to look into it. I have fired off a really angry letter to the paper and I hope to God they put it in! One of her friends said that she felt under pressure in there and gave her baby a feed even though he wasn't due for one, and that she has heard of this sort of thing happening in the Dereham cafe.
Bookthief, you got it in one.

PCT - so health-authority-funded to promote breast-feeding?
Like Morocco, I think I'd want to know more about why the mum was there - these things aren't like Costa or Starbucks after all, they're normally in church halls.
But if a bottle-feeding mum was there to get help and advice about EBM, or mixed feeding, or re-establishing lactation, or doing things differently next time, they should have welcomed her and given her support, not asked her to leave

doesn't surpise me at all - how sickening

it shouldn't matter whether she had no desire to ever breastfeed her child and had planned to formulka feed since before he/she was born...the fact that she was at this cafe mean't that she was a customer and should have been treated with respect and thanks for using the establishment.

This them and us campaign will never win ..

Surely these places should be about supporting with feeding... not squabbling over how the milk gets in!

That's appalling. No one should be made to feel bad about the way their feed their baby, whatever their reason for doing so.

The new laws that provide protection for breast feeding mums should also apply to protect this woman also.

No idea why their is a need for an exclusively breast feeding cafe anyway. Very odd.

Maybe she was there with another friend?

She had just finished a baby massage class with her friends and they all went off to the cafe to feed the little'uns. I just think if this level of discrimination from bf staff can go so far as to manifest itself in this way, clearly we are not really getting the help we deserve.
They run these cafes for all the breast feeding mums who are sick of being made to feel like lepers for getting their boobs out when they're out to lunch in town or whatever. Unfortunately it would seem a lot of the country bumpkins around here forget what they were probably brought up on themselves.

besides what a fantastic way to encourage a potential future breast feeder by asking them to leave BF cafe !!

Hasn't done anything positive for BF really at all apart from making this cafe look very silly.
The BF mums aren't going to be "turned", but the bottlefeeding mums may realise that there is support available that they may not have had before.

And as has been said before it shouldn't be about "them and us". we're all trying to do the same job, and could probably all do with extra support from each other.

It's not a commercial venue though. Breastfeeding "cafes" in my neck of the woods are in utilitarian premises like school halls and specifically drop-in centres for advising breast-feeding mums.
I think the Trust are absolutely right to investigate how this mum was treated but I don't think it equates to being asked to leave Starbucks because of how your baby is being fed.
at women being made to feel under pressure to give a feed though. That sounds very heavy-handed and wrong.

The woman was discriminatated against.

These woman should know that all mums of young children need support, not alienation from other parents.

that is outrageous, the whole point of BF cafes is to make mums feel comfortable about feeding their child, that should be ALL mums, i BF my LO until she was 5 months and i felt more uncomfortable having to bottle feed in public than BF (i felt bad enough having to give up cos i was ill) how weird is that

Aren't breastfeeding cafes actually hospital or health service run breastfeeding workshops under a different name? ie not a 'cafe' as you or I would normally understand it at all - so not a customer, more like a client or even a patient.
If she wasn't interested in breastfeeding, it would only be like asking someone whose kid had perfect speech to leave a clinic for children with speech difficulties, surely? Or a parent of an NT child to leave a playgroup set up for children with disabilities? My ds with dyspraxia regularly went to a babygym for children with disabilities, it was set up as part of the child development unit's physiotherapy service, and sometimes the staff had to ask people (very politely) to leave or at least, not join in, if their children didn't have any disabilities and weren't on a physiotherapy programme.
I think it is easy to get outraged about this but we may not know all the facts.
Obviously if she was in Starbucks or Joe's Greasy Spoon and was asked to leave for breastfeeding or bottlefeeding, then I'll gladly get my pitchfork.

Well that was extremely ill-considered on their part wasn't it. Can see no justification for it