Cafe bans customer who claimed lunch was 'ruined' by mother using breast pump

[funnyfacestace]

What do you think about this?

A cafe banned a troublesome customer who complained to the owner that her "lunch was ruined" - by a mother using a breast pump.

www.heraldscotland.com/news/17392477.cafe-bans-customer-who-claimed-lunch-was-ruined-by-mother-using-breast-pump/

What if you can’t bf and decide to exclusively express (which is the worst of all worlds and generally only done by the truly desperate)

That was me. For the best part of 9 months. I carried a portable, battery operated, hospital grade pump and mostly expressed in toilets when not at home. Including on planes, trains, in the back of the car, at weddings, wakes, at the spa...... Would have much preferred to have felt as free about feeding as my conventional breastfeeding friends. (Am very large chested though so quite hard to do it as discretely as they did.)

It was pretty soul destroying at the best of times, and very hard work (had to wake at night to pump even when DD was sleeping through). So to have been judged as this lady is being by some on here would probably have had me chucking milk at them.

Should a woman who’s exclusively pumping shut herself away for six months then, lest she offend anyone ? no she should express at home or in private. The same as you’d prepare any other meal at home and not at a table in a cafe.

Have you ever breathed @SummerGems ?

Breastfed. Ffs autocorrect!

That’s not relevant. She wasn’t breastfeeding.

Gobsmacked by some of the thoughtless comments. I'm sure she wasn't expressing for the fun of it. (It's not fun). The mother in question was at work, so couldn't do it at home. Or do you expect her to travel from her work place to her home to express and back again, say twice in a shift?
She was covered up and it the corner, not standing on a pedestal in the middle of the café. Likely nowhere else to do it in a small café. Or do you think she should have done it in the toilet? Maybe you like having your drinks prepared in the bog, I don't know.

I hated expressing, I felt like a cow being milked!

I'm a bit 🙄 about it to be honest - I'm not sure staff using the facilities is appropriate, there should be somewhere for them to go for things like this, eating, relaxing etc when they're on duty

You don't need to watch to be painfully aware. You can hear the squirts (or maybe that's just my experience). It's like picking or flossing your teeth. Necessary, healthy, but not for public sharing.

I think cafe was right to ban the customer (sounds like they were very impolite & OTT). Also believe it was an inappropriate location to express (confined public space). Maybe she usually expresses outside & it has been too cold, to be fair, is my only caveat.

@SummerGems expressing milk is considered breastfeeding (by health professionals and breastfeeding organisations), as in feeding the baby from your breast. It's just not what most people consider breastfeeding.

Well done pouty for express feeding all that time, it’s hard work. You should be really proud. I just laughed thinking about throwing breastmilk on some of the posters on this thread. 😂

I think it’s funny that people could quite happily sit there and drink their cows milk latte in horror at hearing a few squirts of milk from a breast pump. Total non issue.

Would it have made people happier if she was a paying customer pumping milk with her baby with her?
It is because of some sort of incense over her wanting to give her baby breast milk even though she'd dared to return to work?

I blame the employer to be honest. They should have provided her with a proper place to pump- not in the cafe.

summergems clearly has no idea how expressing works.

Also, did lots of people on the thread miss this bit in the article:

"It was very discreet, she was covered and no one could see anything.”

I blame the employer to be honest. They should have provided her with a proper place to pump- not in the cafe.

I took a query yesterday from a member of staff needing to express. I struggled to find her somewhere appropriate and she works in a hospital. Many cafes have one loo, a store room and the kitchen. It’s not always possible.

Perhaps the cafe has a particular ethos which attracted the staff member in the first place, and they felt no more embarrassed pumping in that spot than she would have breastfeeding.

There are some real dicks on this thread.

I never pumped in public, perhaps I'd have managed to continue exclusively pumping if I'd managed to do it in publiic too. As it was for 13 weeks I was stuck in a hospital so could pump with wild abandon. Then once we were home I couldn't go out for more than a few hours because of needing to pump. Which is fine except I was on the bus so you'd get ready, back the pushchair, get a bus into town and you'd have an hour before you had to think about getting back.

If I had a hospital appt for my son I used to pump pads in my bra and just suffer in pain until we got back.

I'd loved LOVED to have breast fed but he was tube fed, on o2 with CLD and he couldn't manage it. Plus he needed meds in the milk for his GERD. Expressing my milk was the only tiny contribution I could make to his health.

You can all shove your judgement up your bum

When I worked at Wetherspoons the ‘staff room’ was a cupboard to hang your coat up in.

For a lot of places there aren’t anywhere private for this to happen except the toilets (which isn’t acceptable).

As if you’d get your knickers in a twist over someone pumping.

More likely people like to put the heel in the staff that were supposed to be serving them 🙄

Get on with it and eat your food
Mind your own business. This would be completely normal in other parts of the world. It's always westerners who have a problem with women's breasts. Really, they're no big deal.

I would be a bit if I saw someone pumping in public but would get over it and ignore it.
I would never pump in public for a few reasons and one of them being my pump sounds like a cows moo as it works. My children find it hilarious.

Good on her for doing it if she feels comfy to do so.

I really dont understand how some people manage to survive being so uptight! A woman using a breatspump is not louder or more distracting than someone having a conversation. It's a normal part of life. If you are out for a long period of time without your breastfed baby then you do need to pump. Alot of smaller cafes just have a kitchen area and a toilet, they dont have staff rooms or offices... so staff members taking their breaks would have to sit at the tables. So do you expect the pumping mother to sit locked in the toilet whilst she expresses? That is grim.

That’s not relevant. She wasn’t breastfeeding.

It is very relevant as you are expressing your opinion on how she should be expressing her milk when you clearly don't know how it works.

Milk is still produced when you are away from baby. It needs expressing if you want to keep up a good supply or it will simply not keep production up. Expressing solely during the hours she is at home is much more difficult because much of your milk will be taken directly by the baby and your time spent with your boobs out would be doubled.

It's not always possible to express in private. I went back to work when DS was 9 months old, he had terrible tummy trouble until he was 13 months old so I expressed at work for him (in the first aid room). However, when I had to go to London on the early train I had to express in my seat, as I'd have no time to find a meeting room at the other end before my meetings for the day started. I pumped under a massive shawl, no-one could see anything but the person next to me could hear it I suppose. No one ever batted an eyelid. I wasn't about to pump in the disgusting train loo!

"no she should express at home or in private. The same as you’d prepare any other meal at home and not at a table in a cafe."

Doesn't work like that. I was feeding my baby in the morning, then expressing in the afternoon. If I hadn't I'd have been in a lot of discomfort, leaking everywhere and then milk production would have tailed off and I might have had to give up breastfeeding before DS was ready.

"For a lot of places there aren’t anywhere private for this to happen except the toilets (which isn’t acceptable)."

I expressed in the loo in work, there wasn't anywhere else. It wasn't ideal, but it was fine. Took a chair and my tablet in and I actually have quite fond memories of it as it was the only time for a while that I was actually on my own. I do know how sad that sounds!

Haha bless ya. Bet your work toilets were nicer than many cafe's tho