Breastfeeding In Public
I came across an article here about breastfeeding in the UK. Apparently there is a law being passed through the Parliament in the UK to protect breastfeeding mother’s rights for up to 1 year. However now the government is trying to take that down to only 6 months. The entire thing is a tricky read, but interesting nonetheless.
The writer says that in Scotland mothers are protected for up to 2 years. As soon as I read that my heart skipped a beat. I could not imagine breastfeeding in public with my own now 2 year old. When he was younger I had no problem with it, however now I can only imagine how people would respond. I envision someone flipping open their cell phone to report me for child abuse. So the idea that a country would create a law to protect a mother’s right to breastfeed her child for two years just makes me swoon.
In the US there is a Federal Law protecting a woman’s right to breastfeed in public on Federal property, however the law does not establish a upper limit for age. Each state has also created their own laws for breastfeeding in public and how to protect that. The sad thing is that they need the laws at all, that we can’t just accept that mothers will feed their babies and that often happens outside the home. Like outside of a courtroom for example.
Toronto, Canada is also working on a public breastfeeding initiative. it’s something that has me pretty excited. Imagine, an entire city proudly promoting breastfeeding moms who dare to leave the house. It’s a beautiful thing.
The initiative, called “Breastfeeding Friendly. Anytime. Anywhere.” will encourage the 6,100 restaurants throughout the city to post decals in their windows and register online to let mothers know that breastfeeding inside is not only accepted but encouraged.
June 26th, 2008 at 7:32 am
I don’t live too far from Toronto. On all our public buses there are signs with women breastfeeding on a bench. It says “breastfeeding, anytime, anywhere” or something like that.
That’s ridiculous that governments elsewhere have decided to dictate how long someone should breadfeed!?