Babies need them. Men love them. Women are embarrassed by them. They are too big. Too small. Too controversial.
Before formula, breasts were essential for life.
Mine are very much a part of who I am in my ability to provide for my children.
So why is there so much stigma around feeding babies in public?
I believe our society’s intolerance for the public feeding of children is one of the reasons South Africa has one of the lowest exclusive breastfeeding rates in the world.
In 2013 the rate of exclusive breastfeeding up to six months of age for babies in SA (as the World Health Org recommends) was only eight percent. Eight percent!
With a percentage that low it is clear that something is horribly wrong with our society.
Now I know there are a million differentials at play here and there many women who are not able to breastfeed for medical reasons.
This column is not about those women (as much as I know their pain is very real).
This is for the women who wanted to and couldn’t because they had to go back to work, because their families and friends didn’t support them, because they were told their breast milk wasn’t enough or that formula was more nutritious (a horrible myth), because people made them feel uncomfortable when they needed to breastfeed or embarrassed them in public.
Whatever the reason – it has to end. Most urgently in the workplace.
Most women don’t know that according to SA law their employer has to allow them at least two 30 minute sessions to pump or feed an infant every day the first six months of the child’s life. Considering that most women take maternity leave for three or four of those months, it’s a ridiculously short time. A year would be more realistic.
But still most women believe they only have two options: either resign or switch to formula (A doctoral research study by nutritionist Linda Siziba found that for 29 percent of women, going back to work was the main reason they stopped exclusive breastfeeding).
Then of course you have to have the luxury of owning a pump, a car and a fridge. I gave a domestic worker a lift up Ballito Drive the other day and she had her baby with her. She proudly told me how her employer was allowing her to bring baby so she could continue to nurse.
Incredible! I wish she was not the exception.
One of my main bugbears is that feeding your baby in public remains largely a taboo practice.
Breastfeeding is difficult enough without adding this to the equation. No one else can feed Ruben for me and that means I can never be away for more than two hours at a time (unless I express for him). Breast milk digests faster then formula so baby sleeps for shorter spells.
I haven’t had a straight eight hours sleep in four months (or four hours for that matter).
Ruben was six weeks premature which means he has the demands of a newborn much longer then a full term baby would. Still its a sacrifice and its inconvenient, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. Ruben is basically an extension of me for his first year of life. Where I go, he goes.
I love having Ruben’s milk on tap. It’s always the perfect temperature and when I’m sick (like right now, with flu) my body fills my milk with antibodies to protect him. How incredible is that! But back to feeding babies in public.
No women should ever feel she has to use a public restroom to feed her child. Its just plain unhygienic.
An ad campaign created by students at the University of North Texas went viral in 2014 really captured the heart of it.
mothers.
The campaign was inspired by a mother in Houston who was asked to either leave or use the fitting rooms of a women’s department store when she sat down to feed her baby. She refused and the story attracted outrage across America and the world. But yet the same thing continues to happen every day in our own country.
A mother nursing her infant shows less skin then many of today’s most fashionable bikinis. Yet the very idea makes us uncomfortable. Boobs are wonderful assets with a God-given miracle ability to create liquid gold. Breastfeeding it is the most normal, natural thing in the world. Let’s end the prejudice against breasts and the women who use them.
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