It doesn't matter how you feel about it.

You hear that, American business owners?  STOP KICKING WOMEN OUT OF YOUR ESTABLISHMENTS FOR PUBLIC BREASTFEEDING.  We at Babble hear stories every day of women being told to hide in a bathroom or go outside if they want to breastfeed.  Within the last two weeks, a mother was asked not to breastfeed in the American Girl store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan and another woman was asked not to breastfeed at a Texas YMCA.  (Though I agree with most commenters that said mom should not have been breastfeeding in the Y’s pool.  On the deck, totally fine, as a YMCA employee suggested.)  Additionally, a woman in Kentucky was asked to leave a Johnny Rockets last week while breastfeeding her 6-month-old.

When I say breastfeeding in public is totally fine, I mean it’s totally fine.  Not like I’m totally fine with it (because you all know I myself was actually a little bit squeamish about breastfeeding in public), but like it’s totally, completely, 100% legal for women to breastfeed openly in any public or private space.  (Except in Idaho.  But more on that in a minute.)  So it doesn’t matter how you feel about it, store owners.  Your customers’ feelings and your employees’ feelings don’t matter, either.  Public breastfeeding is legal: deal with it. Continue reading »

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Breastfeeding in public: when will store employees learn the laws?

A mom shopping at American Girl Place in New York this weekend was asked to stop breastfeeding her baby in the seating area of the store. In tears, she moved to a fitting room while employees talked about her loudly outside  the door. Her husband tweeted about the incident and how upset his wife was: “She called me after it happened and was pretty upset. Completely unacceptable.”

Continue reading »

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Good news for nursing mothers: Under President Obama’s new health care reform law, all employers must provide unpaid break time and an appropriate space for nursing mothers to pump breast milk at work, according to USA Today.

It’s a “revolution in American culture,” according to Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore), who sponsored the breastfeeding portion of the legislation in the Senate. “Essentially, until now there’s never been a national discussion, a national sense of, ‘Oh, of course this is something we should accommodate,’ ” Merkley told USA Today.

Pumping at work can be a real drag — especially when there’s no time or appropriate place to do it, so this could be a huge shift in the right direction. The new law specifies that employees must have “a place, other than a bathroom, that is shielded from view and free from intrusion from co-workers and the public, which may be used by an employee to express breast milk.”

The breast-feeding provision took effect when President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, but it’s still not clear how it will be enforced. Continue reading »

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An unemployed mother in Winston-Salem, N.C., was told she had to stop breastfeeding her baby while waiting to meet with a jobs counselor. After all, it was office policy that nursing moms take their nastiness to a private room, if available, or … outside.

When an office receptionist informed Elizabeth Abbott, mother of four, that the nursing baby was making others in the office — the men in the office — uncomfortable and that she needed to stop or leave.  Continue reading »

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We middle- and upper-class parents can moan (rightfully) about the pathetic state of this country’s maternity leave policies, but I suspect nothing will change until the low-wage worker is brought into the mix. After all, those with greater means  can pretty  much make things work out. We have more choices, though it doesn’t always feel that way.

Workers who don’t earn much, however, suffer the brunt of our pathetic Family and Medical Leave Act (guarantees time off; does not guarantee pay). When you  earn at or near minimum wage, is there really much of a choice than to pass the placenta and get back on the job?

This goes for breastfeeding, too. Women who don’t live near poverty can take time off, find a private room to pump, demand a private room to pump.  Or get someone to bring the baby to the office to nurse.

Bringing baby to the workplace was the strategy of Maria Chavez, a cashier a Los Angeles taqueria, who wound up getting fired for nursing. On her break. In her car.

Oh, but there’s justice at the end of this story. Continue reading »

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